


(if only for a little while) we could insist on the impossible

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bullying, Child Neglect, Dysfunctional Family, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Epic Friendship, Everyone Is Gay, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, OR IS IT, Oblivious, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Pining, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Unrequited Love, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-10 04:53:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15284100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Grantaire's starting his junior year at a boarding school by the name of Creekwood Academy, and honestly he's just excited to not have to put up with his parents for a couple of months. He's prepared to deal with the higher work levels and stricter teachers, even if they do turn out to be more stressful than he was expecting. Then he meets the Amis and with them their blonde revolutionary leader, who doesn't seem to be telling his friends everything, but who's somehow drawing Grantaire in to actually caring about their causes.Great, now he has to put up with a new school, a major crush, and who knows what other drama. Maybe he was better off at his old school...





	1. Yes, The Cookies Are Vegan

**Author's Note:**

> also [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/goldsttar/playlist/2l5566tSBA2CDHE5evL4HK?si=DvNTkq_LTia972dUXmTrPg) is a playlist for the fic!

Grantaire's never been so happy to get out of a car in his life, than he is that afternoon, piling out of his parents car and out into the driveway of Creekwood Academy for the first time.

It's not that he's excited about the start of a new year stuck in a high school, he's the opposite of thrilled about it actually. But he can't even bring himself to care, because he's transferring to a fucking boarding school this year. Sure, most kids his age wouldn't be overjoyed at that concept, but Grantaire is. It means he gets to spend the next few months living somewhere that his parents don't. A whole year--unless he goes home for the holidays--of not having to put up with his mothers passive aggressive remarks, or his fathers judgemental, narcissistic behavior. It's gonna be a great year.

He makes his way around to the trunk of the car with an uncharacteristic spring in his step, popping it open to retrieve the bags he'd packed last minute before going to bed last night. (No amount of enthusiasm, it seems, could bring him to confront his procrastination problem.)

"You seem cheerful for someone who just spent two hours ignoring your family with those headphones of yours," his mother comments. despite the fact they couldn't have driven more than one hour from the airport, making her way around the car. He doesn't even need to look over at her to picture the disapproving scowl on her face as she says it. One day her face will get stuck that way; assuming it hasn't already, that is.

"Just can't wait to start learning new knowledge," Grantaire says, laying on heavy with the sarcasm.

"He's over there thinking the Academy's just going to be some grand vacation," his father says, stepping out of the car. Frankly, Grantaire's surprised his father even bothered coming along for the drive. He knows they only came with on the flight there because they have business in the next town over, but why bother spending the extra time with him to drop him off? Maybe he just wanted to get in as much time harassing his son as he could before school started. He turns to Grantaire and says, "It's going to be a rude awakening when classes start, young man. Back in my day, the Academy was known for being one of the toughest schools around. With your work ethic, you're lucky you even got in."

Grantaire refrains from pointing out that it wasn't his luck, but rather his parents money that got him into the "prestigious" school. It'd be hypocritical of him to complain about the injustice anyway, seeing as he's the one taking advantage of it.

They both insist on walking him in to the registration office, just in case he finds some sort of trouble to get into between the parking lot and the dorms. But once he's checked in and they've given him his dorm assignment his parents are gone with a stiff and uncomfortable hug from his mother, and an even stiffer and more uncomfortable goodbye from his father. Grantaire manages not to leap for joy as he watches them disappear out of sight, and turns to drag his luggage to the dorms.

When he finds his room it looks like his roommate got halfway through settling in before giving up and leaving. The bottom bunk is made, albeit not neatly, and there are two suitcases on the floor, one open and half unpacked. 

Grantaire shrugs and drops his own bags next to the door, leaving the door open behind him to look around the room. It's roughly the size he was expecting, not too bag but not too small either. The floors are wood, something nice that's all he can tell. The bunk bed is pushed to one wall, meanwhile another has two dressers against it, and the third two desks, a door set into the wall between them. The door is half open, and Grantaire can see that it leads to a bathroom. There are no windows, and the walls are painted a questionable shade of maroon. Seeing as all the furniture is pushed up against the walls, the floor is entirely empty, although there are plenty of scuffs in the wood flooring.

All in all, it's not as bad as he was expecting. It's also not as good as he was expecting, to be honest. A healthy middle ground.

Leaving two bags where he dropped them by the door, Grantaire picks up one of them and carries it over to the bunk bed. He thinks it's safe to assume that his roommate prefers the bottom bunk, seeing as that's the one already claimed, and he sets to work wrestling some sheets onto the top mattress. It's not exactly his definition of fun, but at least the dorms are air conditioned.

Once he's done he thinks about starting unpacking, but decides he's down enough work for now and instead climbs down to plug his phone into the first outlet he finds. Then he sits on the floor and scrolls through the phone while it charges. For a moment he roots around in his pockets for a pair of headphones, and he goes through the trouble of plugging them in, but when he opens up Instagram he totally forgets to even put on any music.

Instagram is kind of depressing, he realizes after scrolling for a couple of minutes. The only people he's following are his friends from back home, most of whom hadn't even really bothered to say goodbye when he left for the new school. In their defense, they were never really good friends. Just the sort of acquaintance you talk to at school, and sometimes text, but never really hang out outside of that. Which is. Lame? Sad? Who cares. Point is, Grantaire's busy regretting opening up Instagram when he hears a chorus of voices coming from down the hall.

"I'm just worried about Enj," one of them's saying. "He didn't answer, like, any of my messages this summer."

"Yeah, but he's never been great at that," another voice says, nonchalant, not at all affected by the worry in the other's tone.

"He doesn't answer fast, but he usually answers," a third voice says, followed by a loud huff and a shout of, "Why is this couch so heavy?!"

The first voice answers, sounding closer now, "Chill, we're almost there, Feuilly. Anyway, I get he's  _busy_ usually. But he doesn't just. He doesn't just leave me on read! And you know how--this couch is heavy--You know how his parents are. I'm just worried."

"God, if he'd let me fight his parents in a Denny's parking lot, I would. And that's not even a joke."

"We made it! Oh thank god!"

Grantaire looks up as the owners of the voices appear in the doorway, carrying a worn but comfy looking couch with them. He takes a single earbud out and raises an eyebrow, asking, "You guys need some help with that?"

"We got it," the nonchalant one says, actually letting go of the couch with one hand to wave it, as if waving the notion away. Then he stops momentarily, and looks over his shoulder at where Grantaire is seated on the floor. He looks like he's contemplating whether or not he's forgotten something, then he asks, "Uh, who are you?"

"Grantaire," he answers. "I'm new."

"Oh! Hi, Grantaire, you're my new roomie, right?" one of the others asks, the third voice who'd been unhappy with how heavy the couch was. He's not exactly small but he's not tall either, dressed in an oversized sweater and with a mop of brown curls poking out of the baseball cap atop his head. Grantaire thinks he heard them call him Feuilly. The suspicion is confirmed less then a second later when the guy says, "I'm Feuilly."

They move to set the couch down near the center of the room, facing the two dressers. Once they set it down, Feuilly sighs heavily and adds, "This is Bahorel," he indicates the nonchalant one, then points to the other and says, "And Combeferre."

Grantaire gives a half-hearted wave, and the one called Combeferre narrows his eyes a little. He's wearing glasses, a white t-shirt, and hello kitty pajama pants. He drops onto the now situated couch and asks skeptically, "You uh, you didn't happen to overhear any of that from in here, did you?"

"Sorry, I was blasting Green Day," Grantaire lies, indicating the one earbud still in his ear. It's not that he can't be trusted to keep a secret--he doesn't even know who this Enj person they were talking about is, and he doesn't really care. He just imagines the three of them would be more comfortable assured that Grantaire hadn't overheard the conversation. He smiles innocently and asks, "Why? What's up?"

"Nothing," Combeferre answers, already seeming more at ease. Right call then. 

Feuilly sits down on the couch next to his friend, tucking one leg underneath him as he does, and patting the cushion space on his right as an indication for Grantaire to join them. "So what brings you to Creekwood?"

"Uh, my dad got sick of my shenanigans at home, so he shipped me away. That's a cliche, right?" Grantaire says, getting up and moving to sit in the spot indicated by his new roommate. He supposes he's lucky, he hasn't known the guy long but he doesn't seem immediately terrible and he's laughing at Grantaire's joke, so that's good. He adds, "But I think it's less 'cause of the boarding school will stop the shenanigans thing, and more 'cause now they're someone else's problem."

"Same," the one called Bahorel says with a laugh.

"Oh please, Marie adores your shenanigans," Combeferre says, shaking his head but smiling nonetheless.

"Since when are you on a first name basis with my aunt?"

"Last Thanksgiving," Combeferre answers, and Grantaire really can't tell if he's joking or not.

"Oh, just 'cause you help with the dishes one time," Bahorel says, rolling his eyes, and Grantaire guesses it's not entirely a joke. He suppresses a laugh. "I've been doing the dishes my whole life. Just 'cause you're a guest and you did them..."

"Okay, who wants to get the t.v with me?" Feuilly interrupts their bickering with an entertained laugh, but the kind that tells Grantaire this kind of thing happens a lot.

Both Bahorel and Combeferre just turn to Feuilly with equally disinterested looks on their faces, and Grantaire can't help but laugh. He shakes his head and gets up off the couch, because he really doesn't think he has anything better to do right now, and says, "I got'chu."

"Thanks," Feuilly says with a smile, starting for the door, just leaving Bahorel and Combeferre alone in the dorm room that belongs to neither Bahorel nor Combeferre.

They make their way towards a moderately sized room populated by extra sofas, bean bag chairs, t.vs and so on. Grantaire figures it's where the students store their furniture over the summer. There are pairs of roommates heading in and out with various things when they get there, including a pair of girls who Feuilly stops to talk to in the doorway. One a dainty looking blonde, the other a brunette who somehow looks both very kind but also ready to fight.

"Eponine! Oh my gosh, we were worried you wouldn't make it this semester," Feuilly says, greeting the brunette with a warm hug. "You fixed the problem with the scholarship then?"

"Actually, no," Eponine says with a wry laugh. She indicates the blonde next to her with a nod and says, "But Cosette fixed it."

"How?"

"Well I mentioned to my dad she was having some trouble, and he was able to talk to the board and get them to let her retake the class she failed," the blonde, Cosette, answers. Then she notices Grantaire standing beside Feuilly and smiles, "You're the new roommate, right? I'm Cosette, this is my roomie Eponine. How're you liking Creekwood so far?"

"He's been here like. Today. How would he know?" Eponine laughs. Cosette  ~~discreetly~~ elbows her in the ribs.

"Not bad," Grantaire says a little uncertainly. Because yeah, Eponine's right, he hasn't really been here long enough to develop an actual opinion.

Feuilly glances into the furniture room and looks around for a quick second before turning back to Eponine and Cosette, leaning casually against the wall and asking, "Have either of you seen Enjolras around?"

"In his room last I checked," Eponine says.

"Speaking of, we're gonna get these bean bags back to ours," Cosette says, picking hers up off the floor where she'd dropped it to hug Feuilly. Eponine nods and Feuilly thanks them quickly, then the two of them scramble off towards the girls dormitories on the other end of the school. 

"Who's Enjolras?" Grantaire asks as they step further into the room.

Feuilly's absentmindedly scanning over the different furniture as they walk, looking for the t.v. belonging to him. He answers, "Hm? Oh, just my friend. Dummy never answers his texts."

They find the t.v. hidden behind a coffee table and a stack of armchairs with questionable stains on them. It's not very big and really only takes one person to carry, Grantaire imagines Feuilly asked for help just for the company. But he carries the cords behind him so they're not dragging along the floor while they make their way back to the room. Feuilly talks the whole way, telling Grantaire information he deems essential about Creekwood Academy--like why the badminton team is more important than the soccer team, which sounds like bullshit to Grantaire, but he doesn't really care about either sport so he doesn't argue.

Feuilly is asking if Grantaire plays video games, because that's apparently the main reason he'd wanted a t.v. in the dorm in the first place, when they arrive back at the room. The door is open like they left it, and Combeferre and Bahorel are still on the couch where they left them. The only difference to the room is that now one more person sits on the couch, and another stands leaning against one of the dressers in front of it.

The guy sitting on the couch has curly black hair and seems overly invested in whatever it is Combeferre is saying at the moment. That's all Grantaire really cares to notice about him, because then he sees the guy leaning against the dresser, and it just so happens to be the most beautiful guy that Grantaire's gay little heart has ever had the good fortune of getting to see. His hair is a golden shade of blonde, pulled up into a messy man-bun. There are some purple spots under his eyes that makes Grantaire think he hasn't been getting enough sleep, but his eyes are such a beautiful shade of hazel that Grantaire barely notices. And he's dressed in a beat up looking denim jacket that's adorned by an enamel pin of the countries flag, and next to it, a circular one with a rainbow. The shirt he wears beneath it is a simple white button down, which might seem formal if he'd done more than half of the buttons, and the thing about that is that Grantaire can't tell whether it's a deliberate fashion choice, or whether this guy is just that absentminded.

He turns towards the doorway when Feuilly and Grantaire show up and smiles, and Grantaire's heart stops, but then he realizes the stranger is probably smiling at Feuilly and not him. Feuilly only notices him after a second, and then he breaks out into the biggest smile Grantaire's seen all day and says, "Enjolras!" He steps forward as if to hug the guy, then seems to remember he's still carrying the t.v. because he stops and offers another smile instead. "I'm gonna set this down, and then I'm hugging you."

"Thanks for the warning," the handsome gorgeous man--Enjolras, apparently--says with an amused little grin. Wait, that Enjolras? The one Feuilly's been worrying about, whose parents Bahorel wants to fight in a Denny's parking lot? Honestly Grantaire hasn't overheard that much about this person, but he still feels like he maybe knows a little too much for someone just meeting him.

Feuilly sets the t.v. down atop one of the dressers, then pulls Enjolras into a hug as threatened. When they pull apart he's still smiling, until he drops the smile and smacks Enjolras in the shoulder with an almost matronly scowl. "Why didn't you answer your phone all summer? We were worried."

"We meaning him and Joly," Bahorel says shaking his head.

"Hey, and me and 'Ferre," the other newcomer says indignantly.

"Sorry," Enjolras says, which isn't really an explanation but it does seem genuine. They're still waiting for an actual answer, but it doesn't seem like one is going to come when he notices Grantaire still holding the cords a little ways off and says, "Have we met?"

Grantaire freezes for a second, he wasn't prepared to be acknowledged by a celestial being toda. He should say something cool, like  _Only in my dreams_ or  _No, I'd remember._ But he flounders and says, "New. I'm no."

He'll beat himself up over that forever, even if he does see a hint of a smile on the guy's face when he answers, "Oh. Nice to meet you, I'm Enjolras." Bless his soul, the boy even puts an arm out as an offer to shake hands.

"Grantaire," Grantaire manages, without messing up, thank god. He even shakes Enjolras's hand for a socially acceptable amount of time. 

"He's my new roommate," Feuilly says with an almost proud sort of grin as he took the cords from Grantaire, reaching behind the dressers to plug them in. Grantaire admires him for that alone, he can never tell what cords go where in any given situation ever, let alone plug them in successfully while participating in a human conversation.

Enjolras frowns. "You got a new roommate? What happened to Charlie?"

"You'd know if you read your texts, now wouldn't you," the guy with the glasses remarks, folding his arms across his chest and raising a single eyebrow.

Feuilly pokes his head up and adjusts the t.vs spot on the dresser, saying, "He has a point." 

Enjolras let's out a cough that sounds suspiciously like "Traitors," before turning to Grantaire with a pair of puppy dog eyes that might not be deliberate but that are certainly unfair and asking, "Did they happen to tell you anything?"

And Grantaire wishes they had, if only so he could tell him. Or maybe so he could deliberately not tell him. (Also because he loves some good drama, and this might be some, but that's not really his focus right now.) And in spite of the fact that they didn't, in fact, tell Grantaire anything at all Combeferre and glasses guy both shout, "Don't tell him anything!"

Playing along, Grantaire shrugs and turns back to Enjolras, saying, "I can neither confirm nor deny any information without the Senator's approval."

"What Senator?" Enjolras asks, looking legitimately confused, tilting his head slightly to the side like a god damn puppy or something. Who gave him the right? Asshole.

"What Sena--It's a Mission Impossible reference," Grantaire says, as if it should be obvious. Because it should. It should be completely obvious. What kind of a beautiful angel man hasn't seen Mission Impossible before.

"I've never seen it," Enjolras says with a shrug, at the same time Bahorel says, tiredly, "He's never seen it."

"That's an atrocity," Grantaire says.

"A little overdramatic, perhaps?"

Enjolras's answer is met with a chorus of overexaggerated laughter and guffaws, two different people saying "You would know," and Combeferre's voice remarking, "A bit like the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think, Enj?"

"Excuse you, I'm the perfect level of dramatic all the time," Enjolras says, and Grantaire can't honestly tell of he's joking or not. Honestly, only a person who is not, in fact, someone the perfect level of dramatic would make a remark like that. It's met with more laughter nonetheless.

Despite not being entirely in on the joke with them, Grantaire chuckles along and makes his way over to sit on the floor by his charging phone once more.

The group does their back and forth banter for a little while longer. They're actually fairly considerate in trying to include Grantaire in on it too, despite him not being a part of their group, and also being on his phone while the conversation is taking place. Grantaire learns the guy with the glasses is named Courfeyrac. He also learns just from their banter that 1) Enjolras really is overdramatic and it's actually pretty funny, 2) most of the people in this group of friends are major nerds, and 3) he's kind of looking forward to spending more time with these people this year. It shouldn't be that shocking, seeing as he was hoping things would be better at a new school. But all the same, he's kind of surprised.

"No but really," Courfeyrac asks Enjolras, who is currently sitting on Feuilly's mattress scanning over one of the books Feuilly had already left on the floor, "What's up with ghosting us all summer?"

Enjolras looks up from the book and says, "I did say I was sorry," then turns to Feuilly as if that settles the issue completely, holding up the book saying, "Can I borrow this when you finish it?"

Feuilly rolls his eyes like this isn't unusual behavior and replies, "Sure, if you stop avoiding the subject."

Feeling kind of like this is a conversation he's not supposed to be a part of, Grantaire tries to look more focused on the game he's playing on his phone. Sure this group's been welcoming to him so far, but that doesn't mean they want his big nose in their drama. But also he can't actually stop listening, partly because he's curious, but also because it'd be kinda weird if he just got up and walked out. How much eavesdropping is he going to be doing this year? (Okay, this isn't technically eavesdropping. Feels like it, though.)

Enjolras sighs and sets the book down on the mattress next to him. "I wasn't ignoring you on purpose, I just didn't have my phone."

"What did your mom freak out about this time?" Courfeyrac asks knowingly.

"Oooh someone got grounded," Bahorel croons like a fucking twelve year old when someone gets called to the principals office over the loudspeaker in middle school.

"What are you, twelve?" Enjolras says, the picture of unamusement. But to Grantaire, who admittedly hasn't known him long, it kind of feels like there's something he's not saying. He shakes his head and explains, "I didn't get  _grounded,_ the stupid thing broke. Into several pieces. Sharp ones."

"Rest in pieces," Bahorel says, with a low whistle.

Enjolras flips him off, and the conversation changes back to their light joking around. Feuilly asks, "What'd you do, throw it at a Trump supporter?"

"I wish," Enjolras says, and again Grantaire's not sure whether it's entirely a joke or not. Then he jumps a little in his seat like he's just remembered something important and starts, "Oh! But I did meet this one old man who told me..."

Grantaire zones off as Enjolras starts to rant about this guy he met over summer--from the looks on his friends faces it's a common habit of his, both to get in fights with random strangers and to rant about them later on. He seems so passionate while he's talking about it, too, and Grantaire really tries not to zone out because he kind of wants to listen. But he can't focus because he's just looking at that one strand of hair that slipped out the messy bun the guy's wearing, and how it frames his face just perfectly, and how...Shit, what was he saying? Why is he looking at Grantaire, was Grantaire just asked a question?

"Uh, yes," Grantaire says, hoping he actually was just asked a question and that yes is in fact the right answer to that question.

"Seriously?"

Shit, it's not the right answer. Backpedaling, Grantaire looks from Enjolras's surprised face over at Feuilly, then back to Enjolras and admit, "I'll be honest, I kinda zoned out. I have no idea what you just asked me."

Enjolras opens his mouth to respond, but then seems to change his mind about what he wants to say because he closes it again. Then he says, seeming indecisive as to whether he's annoyed or amused, "So when you're not listening and someone asks you a question your go to is just to say yes?"

"Pretty much," Grantaire says honestly.

"But that makes no sense," Enjolras says with half of a laugh. He brushes the loose strand of hair behind his ear and adds, "I could've asked you anything."

"Yeah, and my answer would've been yes," Grantaire says.

He doesn't even realize that might sound flirtatious until he's already said it. Fortunately for him, though, Enjolras doesn't seem to think it's a flirtatious remark at all. He just sighs and turns back to everyone else, continuing with whatever point he was making before being thoughtful enough to ask for Grantaire's opinion. "So the crux of the matter is..." but Grantaire doesn't even listen to the rest of that, because he gets distracted by a notification on his phone that he has a new follower on Instagram.

Grantaire goes to their account just out of curiosity, and he recognizes the user as Bahorel. He frowns and looks up over at Bahorel, who's apparently also toning out Enjolras's rant with his phone. He offers a half wave when he sees Grantaire looking up, and Grantaire chuckles and follows him back. Recommendations appear based on the account appear beneath it immediately, and Grantaire recognizes half of them as the faces in the room. He doesn't follow all of them, because that might be weird, but he does click on the one with a profile pic of Enjolras with the intent to stalk the account for a little while--who can blame him, he was thinking Enjolras would post magnificent selfies--only to find that there's only one picture posted, and it's of a white longhair cat. The caption reads "Patria" with three heart emojis.

A little over an hour later and Grantaire's somehow wound up trying to convince Enjolras to let him braid his hair (entirely without success) when Feuilly looks up from the bag he's halfway through unpacking, looking over at all the company they still have and saying, "Don't you guys have your own moving in to do?"

It's probably for the better when Enjolras gets up to leave with the others, because Grantaire doesn't actually even know how to braid.

There's a chorus of goodbyes and see you laters from the group as they duck out the door, closing it behind them. Once they're out Feuilly sits back down on his bed with a huff, reaching for one of the bags he's yet to start unpacking. "Haha, sorry about that. Might've been a little overwhelming for move in day, having so many people just hanging out in here."

"It's no bother," Grantaire assures him, getting up to do some of his own unpacking. "They're a good welcoming committee."

"Don't tell them that, they'll want to actually start one."

The two of them laugh, and then settle into idle chatter as they go about their tasks of putting clothes in drawers and posters on walls and so on. Grantaire lets Feuilly have the dresser not cluttered by the t.v. because Feuilly has books that need storing, and Grantaire really doesn't. His sketchbooks will have plenty of room on the desk. But in return Feuilly lets Grantaire put up a couple of posters for bands that Feuilly doesn't particularly care for. Not long after, they're both unpacked and the room finally looks a little more like there are two teenage boys living in the space. 

They both just sit around messing around on their phones for a little while once they're finished. Sometimes they show each other funny tweets they come across or whatever, but for the most part they kind of just sit in silence. Then Feuilly says, "Hey shit, what time is it?"

"Uhh," Grantaire closes his app to check the time. "Almost seven. Why?"

"There's a welcome back thingy going on down by the lake. It's not an official school event, the other juniors just planned it," Feuilly says, getting to his feet and putting his phone away in his back pocket. He gestures for Grantaire to do the same. "You're not technically coming back, but I'm sure you're welcome. Come on."

Grantaire shrugs and gets up, following Feuilly out the door into the hallway. He wasn't even aware there was a lake on campus (and also why the hell is it not a creek? The school isn't named Lakewood), but apparently there is, and they're going to go hangout by it. Which does kind of sound more interesting than scrolling through his empty Twitter feed in a dorm room by himself or stalking the new Instagram accounts in his recommended so...

"Hang on," Feuilly says, stopping at one of the other doors in the hallway. He holds up a hand and knocks quickly, saying, "Let's see if we need to drag Enj out."

The door opens a few seconds later, and Courfeyrac is standing there, looking kind of confused as to why anyone is knocking at all. He smiles slightly when he finds it's Feuilly and Grantaire, asking, "Hey guys. What's up?"

"Dude, what're you two doing?"

"Uh...I'm reading," Courfeyrac says, as if it's the obvious answer. Grantaire's only known him a little while, but he imagines it is. He glances over his shoulder for a second then looks back and says, "Enj is working on some plans for the Amis this year. Also, he stole my coffee."

"You two shouldn't room together," Feuilly says, shaking his head.

"Is that Feuilly?" a voice calls from within the room, Grantaire recognizes it as belonging to Enjolras. "Ask him if he thinks--"

"No, no Amis talk," Feuilly interrupts. He rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "Enj get your ass out here, we're going to the lake. I'm bringing Grantaire and everything. I think Cosette baked cookies."

"I don't like cookies," Enjolras answers.

"Who doesn't like cookies?" Grantaire says, shocked and appalled.

Feuilly frowns and says, in a way that leads Grantaire to think it's a hundred percent bullshit, "They're vegan?"

"I'm not even vegan, Feuilly," Enjolras answers, still from within the room. 

"Shit, why did I think...Whatever, just get out here!"

Courfeyrac laughs and steps out into the hall with them, and a couple of seconds later Enjolras appears in the doorway, his hair somehow even messier than before, but it kind of works for him. He sighs and steps out of the room, pulling the door shut behind him as they all start down the hall together. He says, "Fine, but I can't stay the whole time. If I wanna convince the school board to actually let the club meet on campus this year--"

"I said no club talk," Feuilly says, pointing an accusatory index finger at him. "We have all year ahead for that, today we're having fun at the lake."

"Okay, but we're not at the lake yet, so that means I can talk about it," Enjolras says, earning a couple laughs.

Grantaire turns to Courfeyrac and asks, "Why can't your club meet on campus?"

"The board of staff is made up of stubborn old conservatives," Courfeyrac says, like it should explain everything. In a way it kind of does. "And they don't like our club, or us, so they won't let us meet on campus."

"What's the club?"

"It's like a GSA but no it's not," Feuilly says, which is an oversimplification if the look Enjolras and Courfeyrac give him means anything.

"While it is more than just a GSA," Enjolras starts, sticking his hands into his jacket pockets. "I'm still pissed they wouldn't let us call it a GSA. Because of course, you're prestigious school can't have any affiliation with--"

"Yeah, but you didn't want it to be a GSA, Enj."

"It's the principle of the thing," Enjolras says, then continuing with his rant as if it hadn't been interrupted at all. 

"There's a pun there somewhere," Grantaire remarks with a chuckle. Enjolras just looks at him and raises an eyebrow, either not appreciating the joke or not getting it. The former is naturally the more likely option, but Grantaire goes to explain anyway, "Because the school's Principle. But you meant, like, principle as in like, a fundamental truth. It's a double...a double meaning..."

He trails off as the unamusement on Enjolras's face doesn't show any sign of lightening up. When Grantaire finally shuts up, Enjolras just shakes his head at him, then launches right back into his indignant rant. "The Amis couldn't be a GSA because we talk about more than just LGBT+ issues, although honestly Gay Straight Alliance is a terrible name for an LGBT+ based club anyway, but that's not why  _they_ didn't want us to call it that. The board thought a club with the word gay in it would make the school look bad to their conservative donors, they told me as much to my face when we applied to make the club official."

"To be fair, the school is mostly funded by rich old homophobes," Grantaire says, he knows because his father is one of them. The light tone to his comment doesn't seem to land well for Enjolras, though, if his expression is anything to go by.

"To be fair?" he repeats. "If the school board or the principle expect to be considered fairly, they should do the same for others. I'm willing to accept a difference of opinion with them, if that opinion is a favorite color or whether or not macaroni and cheese should be served in the cafeteria. But this difference of opinion is them actively disrespecting the existence of thousands of people, many of whom are even students at their own Academy. They don't even take a moment to consider the kind of impact their behavior and remarks could have on those students. Or worse, they don't care. I don't see anything fair about that."

"I mean, I agree," Grantaire says, and for a moment that intensity in Enjolras's shoulders relaxes a little. Then like an idiot Grantaire adds, "I just think it's kind of a waste of time to try and change anyone's mind about it. They're gonna think what they're gonna think, there's not much you or me can do about it."

"Not much you can do, maybe," Enjolras says, his eyebrows drawing closer together in a kind of angry face that Grantaire finds himself thinking is both kind of intimidating and kind of beautiful. "But the only thing preventing you is that exact line of thought. Now I intend to do everything in my power to ensure the future students who may attend this school, or any other one for that matter, do so feeling just as welcome as anyone else. And if I don't happen to succeed before I leave Creekwood, I want to leave it knowing there are other students here who will at least make the same efforts. We can't just accept injustice simply because it exists, that would be like telling doctors not to treat illness just because they can't stop it. They know curing one person won't cure the whole world, but they keep making medicine anyway. Healing is a process, but it goes nowhere without people like  _you_ or me trying to begin it."

Before Grantaire can put his foot in his mouth any further, they're at the lake, and Bahorel's running over to greet them, followed by Eponine, and some freckled guy with an enormous grin.

"How'd you get these two out of their books?" Bahorel asks Feuilly with a laugh.

"I lured them out by setting up a trail of informational pamphlets on various social issues down the hallway, and then jumped them with a net outside the building," Feuilly says, with a remarkably serious tone in his voice. 

"I call bullshit," Eponine says, laughing. "Any pamphlets you found they would've written."

"They're narcissistic enough for that to still work, Ep," the freckled boy says, resting an elbow on her shoulder. He glances over at Grantaire and smiles, "Hey, you must be the Grantaire I've been hearing about. I'm Marius."

"Does this school have nothing to talk about then your roommate situation?" Grantaire asks Feuilly.

"Yeah, well Charlie leaving was kind of dramatic, and classes haven't started yet so there's no new drama to distract everyone yet," Feuilly says, which yeah, that sounds reasonable. Except that now Grantaire only has even more questions than he already had before. "Besides, haven't you ever seen the cliche t.v. shows where everyone's always unrealistically obsessed with the new kid before?"

"Those shows never end well for the new kid," Grantaire points out.

Eponine and Marius laugh, and one of them jokes back but Grantaire's only half listening, because he's kind of distracted watching Enjolras and Courfeyrac walk off towards a couple other people congregated at the lake. He tunes back into the conversation right when Feuilly's saying, "I dunno, the new kid survived It."

"All the kids survived, though," Eponine says.

"Not Georgie," Marius says, softer. He shakes his head and repeats, "Not Georgie."

Eponine looks at him for a second too long before saying, "I'm not taking you to see horror movies anymore."

To which Marius responds, "Please don't."

After a few more people show up they start throwing down blankets in front of the lake for a picnic; a bunch of the students there have brought food to share with everyone and, even better in Grantaire's opinion, a bunch of them have also brought drinks. Not like, lemonade or something, the fun kind. Well there's also lemonade, but the point Grantaire's trying to make is that there's alcohol.

Grantaire ends up sitting with Eponine, Marius, Cosette, and Feuilly. Enjolras is set up a few blankets away with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, and Grantaire tries not to feel too disappointed about that.

Eponine passes him a bottle of strawberry wine and says, "So day one at Creekwood Academy. How're you liking the locals so far?"

Grantaire looks away from where he'd been absentmindedly watching Enjolras laugh at something, accepting the bottle he's being offered. He gets the feeling she's implying something with her question, but he doesn't think too much into it. He raises the bottle to his lips and then when he passes it back to her he says, "Infinitely better than my old school, thank you."

"Did you go to another boarding or what?" Feuilly asks.

"Nah, just a local private school," Grantaire says, shaking his head. Public school had never so much as been an option with Grantaire's family, his parents couldn't have him mingling with anyone not from their class of life, of course. He blames them entirely for the fact that he's never been able to have any real friendships in his life. There was one back home, his no longer best friend since middle school. But back in the days when he was a fresh baby gay he'd decided to come out to his best friend first, and that had put an effective end to the friendship. Not that that's his reasoning for befriending these new people, but considering how blatantly queer most of them are, he doubts that issue will come up again.

"That's nice," Cosette says.

"Me and Cosette went to public school before 9th grade," Eponine says, sipping the wine herself before offering it to Cosette, who promptly refuses it. She shrugs and takes another sip, then says, "Lemme tell you, it's an experience."

"How ever did you survive?" Grantaire says with a laugh.

"A homemade flamethrower, and sheer willpower," Eponine jokes.

Cosette rolls her eyes and smacks Eponine in the shoulder, but she looks resisting the urge to laugh at that. She shakes her head and says, "It wasn't  _that_ bad. Sure the stuff wasn't as nice as Creekwood, but the people weren't bad."

"Easy for you to say," Eponine says, and Grantaire's not entirely sure what that's supposed to mean.

"But where can I get the instructions to make one of those homemade flamethrowers, hm?" Grantaire asks. Is he joking? Maybe. Maybe not. She just laughs and hands him the bottle back. He takes a sip and passes it to Marius.

They finish their food and then Cosette reaches for the bag she left lying in the grass next to them, digging around for something and producing a tupperware container from within. Apparently she actually did bake, and Feuilly wasn't entirely full of shit earlier. Although Grantaire's pretty sure, and maybe a little hopeful, that they're not actually vegan. Cosette takes the lid off the container and holds it out towards Grantaire, "Want one?"

"You're an angel," Grantaire says in place of thank you, accepting a cookie from the container. 

She offers one to Feuilly and he accepts, asking, "They're not vegan, right?"

"No," Cosette says with a confused little laugh.

"Could you do me a favor?" Grantaire asks, leaning forward a little. Cosette nods, because of course she does. He smiles and hopes it doesn't look too conspiratorial when he says, "Ask Enjolras if he wants one, but like, specify that they're vegan."

Feuilly snorts. Cosette looks down at the cookies, then looks back at Grantaire with a confused frown and says, "But I just said they're not...vegan?"

"Yeah, I know but it'll be really funny," Grantaire says.

Cosette shrugs, passing Eponine and Marius each a cookie before getting up and walking over to the blanket that Combeferre, Courfeyrac, and Enjolras are sitting on. From the looks of it they're engaged in some heated discussion, Grantaire imagines it's about something nerdy. But Combeferre cuts himself off mid-sentence when Cosette approaches, and they're sitting just close enough for Grantaire to hear her say, "Hey, did you guys want some cookies?"

Combeferre and Courfeyrac accept, but Enjolras politely declines. Cosette glances over at where Feuilly and Grantaire are blatantly eavesdropping, subtly rolls her eyes, and says to Enjolras, "Are you sure? They're vegan."

"Thanks, but I'm not--" Enjolras starts.

"No, I mean like  _really_ vegan," Cosette says, which is obviously, not how vegan works. As far as Grantaire knows a thing either is or isn't, one food can't be more vegan than another. Which might be why he finds himself trying not to laugh as Cosette shoves the container a little closer to Enjolras and emphasizes, "Like. The most vegan possible. Incredibly vegan."

"Okay, but are they vegan?" Combeferre asks. What a little shit, Grantaire loves him.

Cosette nods enthusiastically, not a hint of sarcasm on her features, and says, "Yeah! They are! Enj, you're sure you don't want any?"

"Thanks, but no," Enjolras says.

"Okay, well how about some of the vegan brownies I have in my bag? I could bring you some of those."

Grantaire leans over to Marius and whispers, "Does she really have those?"

Marius shrugs.

"No thank you," Enjolras tells her. To which she offers some other food, specifying that she made it vegan, and he politely declines another time. Grantaire's not sure how much longer he can stop himself from laughing when she comes up with yet another food to offer, making sure to clarify that it's completely one hundred percent vegan, and Enjolras has to decline yet again. "Thanks for the offer, but I'm not even--Couf, why do people keep thinking I'm vegan?"

While Courfeyrac tries to answer, Cosette slips away back over to sit next to Marius. Grantaire and Feuilly are both still watching Enjolras, snickering at the confusion on his face, when Cosette says, "I don't get it."

"Who cares, you did amazing," Grantaire tells her.

"Hang on, I have an idea," Feuilly says, picking up a cookie and then raising a hand to wave over at Enjolras. "Hey, Enj! Have you tried the cookies? They're vegan!"

Enjolras turns around, looking first to Feuilly and Grantaire, then to the cookie Feuilly's waving around like a flag, then to Cosette, then back to Feuilly and Grantaire. His face falls, comically unimpressed, and it's all Grantaire can do to not just burst into laughter right then and there. Enjolras says, "I just want you both to know that you're terrible, terrible friends."

Which is when Feuilly loses his battle with trying not to laugh, and just loudly guffaws. By some sort of a domino effect, Grantaire ends up cackling along with him, despite it not even being that funny. Really, he's just shocked Enjolras called him a friend, after knowing him for less than a day, most of which was spent bickering.

Feuilly hollers back through his laughter, "Love you too, Enjy!"

The only answer he gets is, "Do  _not_ call me Enjy!"


	2. Don't Even @ Me, Robocop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which enjolras can't go more than two feet without getting into some sort of trouble, and grantaire's school life is a mess

Grantaire has his first day of classes the next day and, that morning, he's considerably less excited about the new school. Also less excited about just how much wine he'd gotten from Eponine and Bahorel last night. Enablers.

Still by some miracle he manages to haul himself out of bed in the morning. He's grateful Creekwood doesn't make him wear a uniform to class everyday, he always thought that was excessive and ridiculous at his old school. But they do have a dress code, which prevents him from getting to just stumble his way to class in his pajamas that morning. In retrospect that's probably for the better, it wouldn't make the best first impression at least. So he makes his way over to his dresser and manages to get dressed in some jeans and a t-shirt with an acceptable amount of holes in it (in his opinion, that is.)

"I hate everything," Grantaire grumbles, mostly to himself, as he drops onto the couch to pull on a pair of mismatched socks and then slip on his shoes.

"I did warn you you'd be saying that," Feuilly says, sitting down next to Grantaire to ties his own shoes. Grantaire can't be too mad about the sarcasm, from the sounds of it Feuilly also hates being awake right now. Certainly not as much as Grantaire does, but oh well. Feuilly groans and stands back up, saying, "Come on. I'll help you find your first class. You got History, right?"

"Don't you have to find your own first class," Grantaire says, not quite ready to get up off the couch yet.

Feuilly rolls his eyes and grabs Grantaire's arm, tugging him up off the couch and then towards the door. As they walk, or shuffle in Grantaire's case, he says, "I won't be late 'cause I know my way around school. You, on the other hand..."

They make their way out the door, then out the hall, and eventually Grantaire wakes up enough to realize he's supposed to thank Feuilly for helping him find the right room. Luckily this happens before they actually find the room. He doubts Feuilly would really even care that much, but Grantaire doesn't entirely want to start off his year being rude to his roommate. There'll be plenty of time to be rude later.

When they do find the room, Feuilly says, "Oh you've got Robocop's class. I don't envy you."

"What the hell does that mean?"

But Feuilly's already starting off to go find his own first class, so Grantaire gets zero explanation, just a "Bye! Good luck!" and then he's left standing outside the door by himself. Grantaire shrugs and opens the door, looking around the classroom momentarily before stepping inside. The teacher, which is who Grantaire assumes Feuilly meant by 'Robocop' isn't there yet, and there are only about four students there already, scattered throughout the desks in the room.

Grantaire's debating where to sit when he spots a familiar face in the front row by the wall, eyebrows furrowed in concentration and gaze fixed on a paperback book in his hands. It occurs to Grantaire just as a passing thought that the picture would make an excellent painting, with the way the rising sun is coming in through the window behind him, reflecting off of his blonde hair in an almost glowing effect--also damn, his hair is gorgeous when it's not in that messy bun. Shoulder length and curly. He's biting his lip ever so slightly, and has his feet propped up on the empty desk next to him. If it wouldn't be amazingly creepy, Grantaire might've taken a picture with his phone, just so he could paint it later.

Instead he realizes he's probably been staring from the doorway for a little too long, shakes his head as if shaking the thought away, and crosses the room to take a seat in the desk next to Enjolras. He lazily drops his bag onto the floor next to him, greeting Enjolras with an incredibly eloquent, "Hey."

"Hang on," Enjolras says absentmindedly, not so much as glancing up from the book. He moves his feet off of the desk Grantaire's now sitting in, though, instead resting his shoes on the little metal shelf beneath the chair, where textbooks are usually stored. Grantaire's debating about whether to take out his phone or find someone else to talk to or something when Enjolras picks up a bobby pin off his desk and sticks it in the book before closing it and setting it atop the desk. "Sorry, I was finishing the page. What's up?"

"Just, hey," Grantaire says, shrugging. He nods towards the book and asks, "What'cha reading?"

"A book," Enjolras deadpans. Grantaire just gives him a look and Enjolras smiles, and Grantaire immediately starts planning ways to make him smile again if only so he can see it again, and Enjolras says,  _"The Red and Black_ , by Stendhal."

"Never heard of it."

"Well it's about a man living in France after that asshole Napoleon's reign ended. The story's told in two books, I'm still on the first one, but...." Enjolras talks about the plot of the book for a good two minutes, and Grantaire's really only half listening because he doesn't really care that much about books, but Enjolras seems really happy talking about his nerd book so Grantaire wouldn't presume to stop him, and they're both early for class so there's time. Then Enjolras cuts himself off halfway through a sentence, and Grantaire's attention snaps back and Enjolras says, "Sorry. I know I talk too much, you were probably just asking to be polite."

Which, yeah he kind of was just asking to be polite, but that doesn't mean he wasn't interested in the answer. Feeling kind of bad for only half listening, Grantaire shakes his head and says, "No, it sounds interesting." Then he scrambles to recall any detail he remembers so it'll at least seem like he was paying attention and asks, "So what's this Elisa chicks deal? She's just a bitch or?"

"Well the author kind of falls into that misogynistic concept of women are jealous and motivated just by their interest in men, and Elisa..."

Which is when the door opens again, and in walks a guy who has to be their teacher. He's not a tall man but he seems to make up for it with exaggerated posture and an overly serious look on his face. The guy hasn't even spoken yet, and Grantaire already has the impression he won't like his class. Well hey, at least he has Enjolras to suffer through it with.

"Good morning class, I'm Mr. Javert," Robocop says, taking his place at the podium in front of the whiteboard. He puffs his chest out a little and Grantaire tries not to laugh. "If everyone will open their textbooks to page 12, we can begin."

"What kind of teacher actually teaches on the first day," Grantaire whispers to himself as he reaches below his desk to grab the textbook stowed beneath it. 

"It's only their job, after all," Enjolras answers as he grabs his own textbook and opens it up to the proper page. He shoots Grantaire a little smirk, and Grantaire decides right then and there that he's screwed. Or maybe he decided it the first time he saw Enjolras yesterday. Okay, it doesn't really matter when he decided it, anyway.

Javert launches into some lecture, and Grantaire kind of wonders why he even had them open up the stupid textbook if they're not going to be reading from it. Not that he wants to read from it, per se, but still. Either way he reaches for his bag to pull out a notebook, fully with the intention of taking notes and everything; he hasn't always had the best grades in the past, and he's hoping this school will be a new start in more ways than one. And for the first couple of minutes he actually  _does_ take notes, albeit probably not excellent ones.

But eventually that gets boring--well it's boring the whole time, but it gets too boring to put up with, and Grantaire turns to absentminded doodling in the margins of his notes. He's thinking about how accurate of a description Robocop was for Javert, and so he decides to make a little sketch of Mr. Javert as a robot. It's honestly kind of a masterpiece, if he does say so himself.

When he looks up from the drawing he realizes he has no idea what the hell the class is talking about anymore. Did he before? Well at least a little. More than he does now. He sighs and glances over at Enjolras's textbook, which is clearly on a different page than his, so he quickly turns the page to number twenty-one. Then he shrugs and turns back to his notebook to doodle some more, reminding himself to at least kind of pay attention this time.

He actually does pay attention when Enjolras raises his hand to answer a question (like a fucking nerd.) Grantaire finds himself thinking that Enjolras is explaining the subject much better than Javert is, and that it's not even just because Enjolras is much easier on the eyes, and therefore easier to pay attention to. 

That is until, somewhere along the lines, Grantaire makes the unconscious decision to start sketching Enjolras in his notebook, too. It's possibly due to the fact that he's not drawing him as a robot, possibly because there's more beauty there that he wants to capture, but drawing Enjolras is harder than drawing Javert. Not to mention it's harder to subtly keep glancing over to check for details when Enjolras is sitting right next to him, and not speaking from a podium in front of them. 

Grantaire's listening, though, he's just also trying to make sure he gets the line of Enjolras's t-shirt exactly right. In fact it's because he's listening that his pencil freezes when he hears Javert follow a question with, "Grantaire, why don't you tell us your thoughts?"

"Uhh," Grantaire says, trying to think back on what they were talking about for some sort of hint as to the answer. Shit, shit, shit, shit. Because really, he is paying more attention, he just doesn't know the answer to this one question. And of course he would be called on to answer the one question he doesn't know the answer to. And now his whole class will already know how dumb he is on the first day. A school like this, everyone else probably already knows the answer. Well okay maybe not, some of them are probably coasting off wealthy parents too, but that's not the point because they're still probably judging him. He taps his pencil on the desk and says, "I'm not--"

"Not sure?" Javert interrupts, raising an eyebrow. Grantaire doesn't really know what else to do but shrug and nod. Javert walks around the podium to stand in front of it instead and says, "Perhaps if you spent a little less time doodling, and a little more time paying attention, you might have a few more answers. Tell me, what are you doodling that could possible be more important than our nation's history?"

And, nightmare of nightmares, Javert walks over as he asks the question to pick up Grantaire's notebook off of his desk and inspect it. Grantaire knows exactly when he sees the drawing of him, too, because his angry face turns a deeper shade of red. He knows better than to laugh, but he kind of wants to, not so much because it's funny, which it would totally be if he wasn't so nervous right now, but because that's what you do in awkward situations right? Laugh? But he doesn't laugh and Javert walks off to set the notebook on top of his desk in the front corner of the room, then turns around and points a single index finger towards the door. "Mister Grantaire, you're out of my classroom. You may return when you feel ready to pay attention. And you may have your notebook back when you learn how to use it responsibly."

Grantaire's not really about to fight it. He doesn't want to make this situation any worse for himself and besides, the notebook only has one page written in and he doesn't want to be in this class anyway. He reaches for his bag off the floor and starts to get up.

Apparently Enjolras has different ideas for him, though. He gestures for Grantaire to sit down and for some reason--blind trust? That weirdly charismatic authority Enjolras carries? Does the reason really matter?--Grantaire listens, and then Enjolras says, "All due respect, but you're kicking Grantaire out because you think he's not paying attention? He'd only be learning less outside, that makes no sense."

"Enjolras, unless you want to join him--"

"But you're just blatantly abusing your position as a teacher," Enjolras interrupts, because apparently he has some sort of death wish or something. He's not done there either, he literally gets out of his seat and continues, "You called on Grantaire when he wasn't even raising his hand, and there were several other students who were. That doesn't sound to me like you care about the class learning, otherwise you would've called on someone who would give us the answer. But you called on Grantaire, because what? You just wanted to embarrass him? And then you confiscate his notebook, which means he can't take notes in his next class either--"

"Young man, take your seat now," Javert says firmly.

"Not to mention there are notes in his notebook, you can see them, so he  _is_ paying attention. And you going through his notes is an invasion of privacy. Now you're just kicking him out to be petty--"

"Principal's Office," Javert says, cutting him off. When Enjolras opens his mouth, probably to offer some other argument, Javert adds with a shout, "Now!"

When he shouts Enjolras kind of freezes, his shoulders tensing up slightly in a not-quite-flinch. But only for a second, and then it's gone, leaving Grantaire to wonder whether or not he's seeing things. Probably. He's not in the best state of mind right now, to be honest he's kind of freaking out. He can't get in trouble on day one, he just can't. Then Enjolras huffs, snatching his backpack up from underneath his desk and slinging it over his shoulders. He waits for Grantaire to get up too, then stomps off towards the door. He pauses in the hallway to hold the door for Grantaire, and Grantaire hesitates in the doorway when he hears Javert, "And Grantaire?"

Grantaire looks over his shoulder and does his best to keep his voice neutral when he says, "Yes sir?"

"My recommendation, if you wish to do well here at Creekwood Academy, is to be a little more mindful what kind of student you decide to throw in your lot with," Javert says flatly. Then he turns back to the class before Grantaire can even answer, and continues his boring old lecture as if nothing had interrupted it.

Grantaire lets the door slam behind him as he ducks into the hallway with Enjolras, who's clenching his jaw so strong Grantaire worries for the boys teeth. Day one isn't going exactly as Grantaire was hoping so far. It occurs to him that the school might call his parents about him getting sent to the Principal's Office, and that now Javert will probably hate him all semester, just because of some harmless doodling. He feels anxiety start to bubble up in his chest and says, with a forced laugh to try and distract both himself and Enjolras, "Is he always such a windbag?"

"I'm convinced he became a teacher because it gave him an excuse to bully people whenever he wants," Enjolras says, rolling his eyes. "I'm sure his second choice was a cop. Oh, and he's not on the board himself, but he's been very vocal about supporting their decisions regarding the Amis."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"He shouldn't have called you out like that in front of the class, and he shouldn't have taken your notebook like that."

"You don't think the school will call my parents or anything, right? I'm kind of already on thin ice with them."

He's thinking he's done a good job of keeping the anxiety out of his voice when Enjolras stops and turns to look at Grantaire, all that anger on his face beginning to be replaced with something else. Part of it's compassion, but Grantaire thinks there's something else there, too. Enjolras shakes his head and says, "I think you're good. This is only your first offense, you'll probably just get detention."

Grantaire breathes out a heavy sigh. "Oh thank god."

He knows he's only been at Creekwood for a day, and so far the classes aren't amazing. But he also already loves it so much more than home. His roommate is wonderful and kind, and the new friends he's made are wonderful and kind. He doesn't have to deal with his parents here. The scenery is beautiful. And also Enjolras is here. And if Grantaire were to get in too much trouble here and have the school call his parents, he knows they could take that all away, make him come back home next semester. He really doesn't want that to happen. Just thinking about it freaks him out even more.

He doesn't even realize how much it freaks him out until he realizes he's breathing too fast and he kind of just stops walking in the middle of the hallway, trying to remember that breathing trick he'd read about on the internet that's supposed to help with anxiety.

"Grantaire?" Enjolras asks, stopping with him. "Grantaire, are you alright?"

"I'm good," Grantaire says, and all he can do is hope it's believable. If the look Enjolras gives him says anything, his lie isn't entirely bought. Great, now not only is he freaking out over something stupid, but he's doing it in front of Enjolras, who's probably put together about everything. He doesn't even seem bothered he was just thrown out of class on the first day of the semester. This is just embarrassing. And terrible. Grantaire takes in a deep breath and says, "I just really don't want them to call my parents. I know it's stupid or whatever..."

"You're feelings aren't stupid, Grantaire, you're allowed to be stressed out," Enjolras says, in a tone that's both sympathetic and firm at the same time. He reaches out a hand and then stops himself and pulls it back, then he asks, "Hey, can I touch your shoulder?"

Grantaire nods, and a second later Enjolras puts a hand on his shoulder, his thumb moving up and down in little reassuring circles. He steps forward a little closer and speaks in a soothing voice, "They're not going to call your parents, Grantaire. You're alright, okay? Breathe. You're okay. Here, do you want to sit down or...?"

"I'm good," Grantaire repeats, but it feels slightly less like a lie this time. He's starting to calm down. He takes in a deep breath, just grateful this happens to be one of his smaller attacks, and says, "I'm good. I, uh, don't know which way the office is, though."

Enjolras laughs a little and takes his hand from Grantaire's shoulder. "I do," he says. "Lord knows I've been sent there enough times."

And they start down the hallway again on their way to the office. Grantaire takes in a few more deep breaths. The energy kind of feels awkward now, but Grantaire gets the feeling he's the only one feeling that way. As much as his brain is telling him he is, he doesn't see any indication that Enjolras is judging him for his little freakout a few seconds ago. He just carries on conversation like normal, which is kind of exactly what Grantaire needs right now, so he's more than grateful. Enjolras asks, "So what were you even drawing, anyway?"

Grantaire doesn't want to admit to drawing Enjolras so he goes with the first doodle and answers, "Before class Feuilly called Javert 'Robocop' so I was drawing Javert as a robot cop."

"You're a creative genius," Enjolras says with a snort. 

"Thank you."

"Yeah, Javert doesn't really like that nickname," Enjolras says, shaking his head. "But I mean, really it's his fault for acting like Robocop all the time. Well, I haven't actually seen the movie, but that's what Combeferre says anyway."

Grantaire breathes in an exaggerated gasp of surprise and says, "What do you mean you haven't seen Robocop? First no Mission Impossible, now this? What do you do in your free time?"

"To be honest with you, I don't really have much," Enjolras shrugs. "Besides, I just don't find gratuitous violence that entertaining."

"There's plot," Grantaire says. Okay maybe it's not the most realistic or well written plot, but movies don't exist to be realistic or well written. They exist to be entertaining. And gratuitous violence pulls that off, especially when either spies or robots are involved. Really, they should make a Robocop and Mission Impossible crossover, and that could be the only movie that Grantaire ever watches. Enjolras gives him a skeptical look and Grantaire flounders and says, "Okay, there's  _some_ plot."

"Explosions don't count as plot," Enjolras says.

"I'll take a good old blowing stuff up before a real plot any day."

"You're terrible," Enjolras says with a laugh, absentmindedly running a hand through his hair. His beautiful perfect hair. They walk for a few more minutes and then Enjolras stops at a closed door and announces dramatically, "We've arrived."

* * *

They don't end up calling Grantaire's parents. They call Enjolras's though, and no one answers. The both of them are sent out of the Principal's Office with one and a half hour's detention the next weekend, and a warning to Enjolras that the school will be trying to contact his parents again later in the day. A concept that Enjolras seems less than affected by. Grantaire wonders if his parents are just super chill--which makes no sense with what he already knows of Enjolras's parents from his accidental eavesdropping--or if Enjolras is just always perpetually in trouble, so he's no longer affected by the consequences. Either way, he's just a little bit jealous.

But he does get through his next couple of classes without incident, and then it's finally time for lunch. He makes his way down to the cafeteria to meet up with Feuilly and co. Marius was in the art class Grantaire has before lunch, so he's able to find the cafeteria without too much trouble just by walking with him. And, added bonus, he doesn't have to walk alone.

Except that's not as much of a bonus as he's initially thinking, because Marius spends half of their walk just talking about Cosette. After a point Grantaire decides to ask, not even caring but just to be polite, "So how long have you two been dating?"

"Oh, we're not dating," Marius says. Then he continues on with his story about Cosette as if there wasn't any interruption at all. It occurs to Grantaire, not for the first time, that straight people are fucking wild. 

By the time they go through the line at the cafeteria and then go to find the others sitting in what's apparently their usual spot in the grass beneath a tree outside the buildings, Grantaire knows entirely too much about Cosette, and thinks that if he hears the name so much as one more time he's going to literally go insane. Or, more insane than he probably already is.

He drops down into the grass to sit next to Bahorel and a senior by the name of Bossuet, who Grantaire had a class with earlier, but hadn't realized was a part of this nex group he's wormed his way into. Feuilly shows up a few seconds later, offering Grantaire a smile as he sits down and asking, "So how's your first day treating you thus far?"

"Well I do already have detention," Grantaire says, popping a tater tot into his mouth. Then with his mouth full he adds, "But other than that, great."

Feuilly just blinks at him in surprise for a few seconds, then bursts into laughter, along with the rest of the group. He shakes his head and says, with some mixture of amusement and disbelief, "God you're as bad as Enj. What did you do?"

"Actually he has detention with me," Grantaire says, which doesn't gain an even remotely surprised reaction from....Well, anyone. "On a completely unrelated note, thanks so much for the warning about what a dickhead Mister Javert is."

"I  _told_ you he was the Robocop! That's a warning," Feuilly says defensively.

"Maybe, but I wanna blame this on someone other than myself."

"Why me? You did say Enj has detention with you."

"I love how you just throw him under the bus," Bahorel says, rolling his eyes.

"He has detention for defending me, so I can't really blame him," Grantaire says. He doubts whether he would anyway. Something at the back of his brain is still telling him Enjolras was judging him for freaking out earlier, but Grantaire's learning to tell when that voice at the back of his head lying, and logically he knows the opposite is true. "Besides, dude was so pissed 'cause I doodled him  _as_ Robocop, which is an idea  _you_ put in my head. So if I'm gonna be pointing fingers, which I am, they're gonna be pointed at you."

Again, the group bursts into laughter. Grantaire imagines it's more from the image of the drawing in their heads than his adamantly blaming Feuilly for his life's troubles, but either way he'll take it. 

Bossuet claps his hands together as he laughs, "You've got to show us that drawing!"

"Sorry, Javert confiscated it," Grantaire says. Realistically, the page with the drawing in it has probably been torn out and thrown away or something. Which is a shame because he actually had some notes on it. Also, that drawing was a gift unto this world, if he does say so himself. He eats another tater tot and adds, "He's probably set it on fire by now, lest anyone else find out about his secret identity."

"Would they fire him if he turned out to be a robot?" Bahorel muses.

"Of course not," Marius says, and with the tone of sincerity in his voice Grantaire thinks he's not in on the joke and is about to tell them that Javert can't possibly actually be a robot. Instead he says, "That'd be some sort of discrimination for sure."

"Hmm, if they cared about that the Amis would be able to meet on campus by now," Feuilly says. 

"I'm not gonna hear the end of this, am I?" Grantaire asks Bossuet in a stage whisper.

"You wanna talk about hearing the end of it," Bossuet says with a laugh. "Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were freshman when they got the idea for the club. Creekwood won't hear the end of it 'till they either give us what we want, or...Well something tells me they're not giving up even after they graduate. They'll find some other way to pester the school board."

"What, so you're leaving us when you graduate?" Feuilly asks. 

"Oh of course not," Bossuet says. "But with my luck, I probably won't even graduate on time."

"Big mood," Grantaire says.

"What's a big mood?" Enjolras's voice asks from somewhere behind Grantaire.

Grantaire turns around as Enjolras walks the rest of the way over, Combeferre and Courfeyrac walking with him. The group scoots out so the circle's a little bigger and the three of them sit down, setting their lunch trays down in the grass in front of them. Enjolras raises a curious eyebrow at Grantaire, and Grantaire fixes his posture a little without really thinking about it. He says, "You'd better be asking what I'm referring to, and not what the phrase 'big mood' means, I swear to god."

Enjolras rolls his eyes, but there's the tiniest hint of a laugh in his voice when he says, "A guy doesn't get one Mission Impossible reference and it must mean he has no idea what anything in pop culture is."

"In his defense," Courfeyrac says, "I did just have to explain to you what 'tbh' stood for like, yesterday."

And Grantaire literally almost chokes on his lunch from just laughter as Enjolras looks at Courfeyrac with one of the most serious expressions that Grantaire's ever had the privilege to witness and just murmurs, "Couf why would you betray me like this?"

Courfeyrac and just about everyone else laugh along with Grantaire, and they just laugh harder the longer Enjolras just, Stares at Courfeyrac, the betrayed and serious look on his face not so much as flinching. Grantaire doesn't even understand how he does it aside from probably just having a lot of practice because honestly, you can't keep a straight face when everyone around you is laughing, even if you don't even find the joke that funny. But then Enjolras finally cracks and laughs along with them, and to be honest it's probably one of the best sounds Grantaire's ever heard.

But once they're done laughing it occurs to Grantaire that he can't just let such an excellent piece of information like that go, so he leans forward and asks, "Enj, lbr, you're pretty out of the loop." Then he pauses for a second and adds, as if just remembering, "Oh! And lbr stands for let's be real, just fyi. And fyi is for your information, btw."

"Courfeyrac, look what you've done," Combeferre says through his laughter, nudging Courfeyrac with his elbow.

"On the record, I would just like to make three things perfectly clear," Enjolras says. He holds up three fingers and puts one down with each point, saying, "One: I did know all of those acronyms, thank you Grantaire. Two: I hate you all. And finally: Courfeyrac is making fun of me, but he's never even watched Parks and Recreation, which is one of the only t.v. shows even worth wasting your time on."

 _"Beep! Wrong!"_ Grantaire says, doing a terrible imitation of a game show buzzer. Then he holds up three fingers and says, "Here's why. One: Okay I can't prove that one's a lie. Two: You totally love us. And three: Parks and Rec has nothing on Friends, don't even at me."

Enjolras looks at him with a comically exaggerated pout, nose scrunched and eyebrows drawn towards one another. Then after a second he leans over and whispers to Combeferre just loud enough for Grantaire to overhear, because Grantaire's admittedly trying to overhear, "I don't want to ask 'cause it'll just prove their point, but what the hell is 'don't at me' supposed to mean?"

He sees Combeferre try to stifle a laugh, then put a hand over his mouth and whisper back, "It's a Twitter thing."

"Thanks," Enjolras says, before turning back to Grantaire and the others as if that sidebar had never even happened. "I'm going to make a Twitter account for the specific purpose of at-ing you, and then I'm going to block you. And those will be the only two things I ever do on Twitter."

"Hey wait, why didn't you ask me what 'at' means?" Courfeyrac says.

"You literally just betrayed me, Couf," Enjolras says with a pointed look. Then he adds, "And you just did it a second time by revealing that I asked Combeferre. I whispered, how did you even know that's what I said?"

"Enj, buddy, you can't whisper for shit," Feuilly says. "I don't think you've ever been quiet in your life."

"That's true, he talks in his sleep," Courfeyrac says.

To which Enjolras just replies, "Courfeyrac!"

Again everyone bursts into laughter, including Courfeyrac who seems particularly proud of himself. But honestly Grantaire can't even do more than chuckle because there are more pressing matters to deal with here. He leans forward, palms out as a gesture for everyone to quiet down, and says, "Wait, hold on! This is really important. Courfeyrac. What does he  _say_ though?"

"If you say a word, I'm filing for a new roommate," Enjolras says. Then, as an afterthought, "Also you snore, and you don't hear me telling everyone about it."

"You literally just did," Bahorel points out.

"We're getting off the subject," Enjolras says.

"Okay sure," Feuilly says, putting his hands on the grass behind him and leaning back. There's a smile on his face that tells Grantaire this subject change is going nowhere good--it almost looks like the face of a mother about to call out their misbehaving teenager. Smug, annoyed, and also a little bit amused at the same time. He says, "How were your classes today?"

"Don't answer," Bossuet says. "It's a trap."

But apparently never one to heed a well-intentioned warning, Enjolras takes a bite of the sandwich on his tray and answers with a casual shrug, "Honestly not that bad. I'm really looking forward to taking Government this semester, and so far no classes with that asshole Montparnasse in them. How about you?"

"Really?" Feuilly says, completely ignoring that Enjolras had asked him back. Looking a little perplexed, Enjolras just nods. Feuilly says, "Nothing else interesting happened today?"

"Well it's only lunch," Combeferre says.

"There weren't any, oh I dunno, conflicts today? Say the resulting in detentions kind?"

Grantaire's trying not to laugh when he leans over to ask Bossuet, "Was I not supposed to have ratted him out?" Bossuet just shrugs.

Enjolras rolls his eyes and says, "Listen, that wasn't even my fault. Javert's the one who doesn't know how to treat his students respectfully. You can't just expect me to tolerate it and not say anything."

"Yeah, I've known you too long for that," Feuilly says with a resigned sigh.

"But you should still be more careful," Combeferre tells him, shaking his head. "I mean, I know they don't like to expel students 'cause it makes them look bad. But I imagine if you keep deliberately pissing them off they're going to have to draw the line somewhere."

"They've put up with him for two years already though," Bahorel says. "What's two more, honestly?"

Feuilly, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac all give Bahorel a disapproving look. Grantaire wonders how many great stories of shenanigans he's missed out on by waiting to transfer to Creekwood Academy until junior year. He imagines he'd have been much happier in this company. In complete honesty, this group of people is already light years better than anyone Grantaire ever hung out with back home. Sure they're all major nerds, and apparently also troublemakers at the same time. But they're funny and through their light sort of banter, it's pretty obvious they all care very deeply about each other. And Grantaire's a little disgusted by the thought, but he finds himself wanting to end up caring about them that much too.

"Sure, but he's never gotten into trouble this early in the year either," Courfeyrac tells Bahorel. Then he turns back to Enjolras and says, "First class on the first day. Come on, what were you thinking? Have you even thought about what would happen if you got expelled?"

"What was I supposed to do? Just let Javert kick Grantaire out of class without any real reason?" Enjolras says.

Courfeyrac and Feuilly both open their mouths to say something at the same time, and Grantaire's starting to worry that their light hearted bantering is turning into an actual serious argument when Joly and Jehan show up and save the day with a well timed subject change. As the two of them sit down in the circle lunch trays in hand, someone asks them what took so long in getting there, and the conversation in shifted to an anecdote about how Joly left a hand sanitizer behind in one of the classrooms, and the two of them had to go back to get it.

Grantaire half listens, nodding and chuckling along whenever someone else laughs at a detail in the story. But his focus is kind of somewhere else. Enjolras and Feuilly are having a nonverbal conversation by just giving each different serious faces, and before Grantaire can even begin to try and decipher what that's about the both of them turn their attention to listen to Joly and Jehan talk. Grantaire's mind starts to wander.

He doesn't get why Enjolras doesn't even seem bothered by the notion he could be expelled if he doesn't improve his behavior at school. For his friends to be so concerned about it, it must be a present issue. And in theory Grantaire understands the concept of putting 'standing up for what's right' or whatever moral dilemma bullshit above personal benefit, but he's never encountered a person who pulls it off one hundred percent. Besides, wouldn't Enjolras's apparently shitty parents be, well, pretty pissed if their son got expelled from such an expensive school? There's gotta be somethings he's missing here.

"Wait, but don't you have an extra hand sanitizer in the little pocket on your backpack?" Courfeyrac asks after the story is finished.

"Well, yeah," Joly says. "But that's a backup one."

"Typically a backup is for when the original isn't available."

"But it was available, it was in the other room."

"So then when would you use the backup?"

"When I don't have the original."

"You didn't have the original, Joly."

"Yeah, it was in the other room."

With that the playful banter and debate picks back up again, and Grantaire's able to pull himself out of his own thoughts enough, at least, to keep up with them. He does keep catching his gaze absentmindedly flickering back to Enjolras, though, and it's not a development he's thrilled about. Why is he worrying about this guy he's known for literally two days?

Eventually the warning bell rings and everyone gets up, putting backpacks back onto backs and throwing their trash into...the trash. Grantaire takes his printed out schedule out of his pocket, uncrumpling the paper so he can actually read it, and scanning down the list for his next class. He reads the room number, then does a half jog to catch up with Enjolras, Jehan, and Combeferre. "Hey," he says, holding his schedule out towards the three of them. "Do you guys know which way I'm supposed to go for this class?"

"That's the class I'm going to," Jehan says, seeming legitimately excited. "Me and Enj have it, too."

"What? No fair," Combeferre says, leaning over to peer at Grantaire's schedule, where he's pointing to the room number next to the words World Religion & Philosophy. "I had it last period. Actually it's a really interesting class, I think you guys will like it."

"Doubtful," Grantaire says.

"Well at least you have us," Jehan tells him, smiling.

They make their way over to the building and then up a flight of stairs, leaving Combeferre at the bottom to go in another direction for his class. The desks are about a third filled up when they get there, but what strikes Grantaire as weird is that they're set up in a circle around the room instead of all facing the front like a normal fucking classroom. He sighs as they walk in and says, "Someone tell me this isn't one of  _those_ classes."

"One of what classes?" Enjolras asks, spotting an area where there are three empty desks next to each other and gesturing for them to head over there.

"Y'know," Grantaire says, following after him. The three of them all drop into their desks, leaving their backpacks on the floor with varying levels of carefulness. He says, "One of those Sit in a Circle Every Day and Discuss classes."

"Oh, probably," Jehan says.

Grantaire sighs. The only other class he's taken before that was in some sort of perpetual socratic seminar was creative writing last year--he has no passion for writing of any kind, but he'd needed the credits--and it was horrible. He's currently of the firm belief that a teacher only has a class lead by student discussion when they don't actually know their subject, which would be fine to Grantaire, who doesn't give a single shit about World Religion & Philosophy, if only it didn't involve him probably having to participate in that student lead discussion eventually. He says, more to himself than anyone else, "Fuck."

There's a glint of amusement in Enjolras's eyes when he says, "Actually I've found more discussion based classes to be far more interesting. I don't know about this one specifically of course, but it might surprise--Wait is that...Fuck."

Grantaire looks over at Enjolras, then follows where his gaze is focussed on the doorway to see what the hell caused him to trail off like that. He doesn't really get an answer. He just sees this one student, a guy who looks like he dyes his hair black but doesn't want anyone to know he dyes it, dressed in a t-shirt that's clearly seen better days and some jeans, sitting down in the desk nearest to the door. He's not even doing anything either, he just starts talking to the kid in the desk next to him. Grantaire doesn't get it.

But Jehan follows Enjolras's gaze too, and then Grantaire hears Jehan mutter, "Aww fuck."

"Am I missing something?" Grantaire asks to neither of them in particular.

"That's Montparnasse," Jehan says, quietly enough to make sure that the guy across the room won't hear them talking about him. "Him and Enj don't get along that well."

"So what makes him special?" Grantaire deadpans, and Enjolras gives him that angry face again. He kind of can't help but laugh, which only makes the angry face angrier. Grantaire can't be held accountable, it's Enjolras's fault for having a face that looks so funny when it's angry. 

"I'm not the only one he doesn't get along with, first of all," Enjolras says.

"Don't speak, you can't whisper for shit," Grantaire says, suppressing a laugh. He's not in on this drama exactly, but he does know that if this dude hears them talking shit about him behind his back it'll just create more drama. And sure drama's pretty entertaining, but not when you're a part of it, and Grantaire's been involved in too much drama today already. He looks away from the glare Enjolras is giving him for telling him not to speak, turning to Jehan to ask, "What, so why don't we like him? What'd he do?"

"What didn't he do," Enjolras mutters.

"Shush," Grantaire says.

"It's a long story," Jehan says.

Grantaire thinks he's about to elaborate at least a little more, but their teacher shows up before he can. Enjolras and Jehan both go to pull notebooks out of their bags in case they need to take notes. Grantaire, who's resigned himself to probably never taking notes, just sighs and goes for his sketchbook. He'll pay attention this time, he swears. It's just usually easier to focus with something else to do anyway.

It turns out Grantaire's suspicion is unfortunately right, and this class is going to be largely based on discussion. How exciting. At least this teacher seems more chill than some of the others, anyway. Grantaire imagines he can probably bullshit his way through passing if the need arises.

He actually listens for almost the entire forty-five minutes that the class drones on about World Religion & Philosophy; well, actually a good chunk of the class time is spent by their teacher explaining her expectations for the class and whatnot, and then about thirty minutes are dedicated to getting a discussion started. It's pretty easy to listen to the discussion, though, because half of the students are just saying completely pretentious bullshit and Grantaire keeps having to stop himself from laughing. Especially when they try to sprinkle in bigger words now and then that they obviously don't know how to use--not that he claims to know how to use them--just to sound more intelligent. But then also there are the students after Grantaire's own heart, who offer one or two words answers without even trying to seem like they care about or know the topic.

It's wonderful.

The opening topic is just an icebreaker thing where the teacher asks them to say, only if they choose to because apparently for today discussion is optional, what they're hoping to gain from this class, and possibly a little bit about their own personal worldviews and philosophies. It's really easy for Grantaire to participate when she asks if he would like to share anything he believes because he just says, "No."

To which she says, "No you don't have any beliefs, or no you don't want to share?"

To which he says, "Yep."

And the conversation moves on, and he gets to return to the revised sketch of Enjolras that he's now working on, hoping Enjolras doesn't happen to look over and see Grantaire's sketchbook. Someone across the room spends a good three minutes talking about their personal belief system revolving around Mothman. Grantaire loves World Religion & Philosophy so far. He turns to a new page and starts to draw Mothman.

They get through the whole class period without any incident from Montparnasse, so Grantaire still doesn't really see where his friends' hatred for the guy stems from. He was expecting him to be a more obnoxious asshole or something, really he just makes a couple of somewhat rude but mostly harmless wisecracks throughout the lesson. Which, oh well, Grantaire supposes not every feud can be super entertaining all the time.

Then the bell rings and Grantaire folds his sketchbook shut, stuffing it unceremoniously back into his bag. Enjolras and Jehan get up out of their desks, and both wait for Grantaire to get up as well to start for the doorway.

"Grantaire, what class do you have next?" Jehan asks as they slip out the door and into the halls.

Grantaire takes his schedule back out of his pocket just to double check, then says, "Uh...Oh, gross, Geometry."

"Rest in pieces," Enjolras says.

The three of them stop walking when they hear a voice call "Hey!" and turn around to see Montparnasse walking towards them. Enjolras swears under his breath again, but they wait for Montparnasse to walk over. Once he's close enough he says, "Aren't you going to introduce me to your new friend?"

"I don't really want to, no," Enjolras says flatly.

"Same excellent manners as ever, Red," Montparnasse says, shaking his head but unphased by Enjolras's attitude. He sticks out a hand towards Grantaire and says, "Montparnasse. And you are?"

"Grantaire," Grantaire says, declining to shake his hand.

"You're new, right? Did they recruit you for their little club of freaks yet or what?"

"Is this guy for real?" Grantaire asks, glancing over at Enjolras first and then to Jehan. Jehan just offers a small nod in response.

"Whoa, did your friend just assume my gender," Montparnasse says in a mock offended voice. What's really sad is, from his expression, Grantaire can tell the guy actually thinks he's being funny. He looks over at Enjolras and says, "Aren't you gonna tell him not to do that?"

"We're going to be late for class, come on Grantaire," Enjolras says, turning away to start down the hallway again.

Grantaire doesn't exactly want to stay and talk to Montparnasse either, so he turns to follow, and so does Jehan. But they've only been walking for a couple of seconds before he realizes that Montparnasse is rather persistently following them, that smirk on his face like he's about to say something else that he thinks is clever. "So wait, Enjolras, I wanted to talk to you really quickly. I wouldn't bother you, but it's really important."

"I guarantee it's not," Enjolras says.

"I just wanna ask you guys a couple of questions," Montparnasse insists.

"Not this again," is Jehan's answer, which leads Grantaire to the conclusion that this kind of thing happens a lot. Montparnasse hasn't even asked his allegedly innocent questions yet and Grantaire's already starting to understand why they don't like this guy. "Look, can you wait to harass us later? We're gonna be late to class. And so are you."

"I'll be quick," Montparnasse says. "I just gotta know, 'cause I'm asking Ep out later--" (Enjolras cuts him off with a "Don't." but Montparnasse doesn't listen.) "--and I figured, Enjolras is a flaming queer, maybe he can help me. So d'you think I'd look sexier if I wore the black shirt or the purple one?"

"I don't think there's a shirt in the world that could make you look sexy," Grantaire puts in before Enjolras can answer.

"Oh, because you'd rather see me without the shirt, right?" Montparnasse says, nodding slowly. "I like the way you think, baby fag. Jehan, wanna second that opinion?"

Grantaire, and from the looks of it Jehan too, are content to just keep walking towards class and ignore this dude. In reality it's probably the best decision, because if they don't answer it's not funny to him anymore, and he'll probably just fuck off. Enjolras seems to be following a different train of thought, however, because he comes to an abrupt stop in the hallway and turns around. Grantaire knows what's coming before Enjolras even opens his mouth, and he's only known the guy for two days. Enjolras says, "Someone should really invest in purchasing a diaper for you to wear on your fucking face for all of the shit that comes out of your mouth every time you speak. Look, if you want to keep being a stupid, bigoted asshole then fine. Fine. But keep your shitty opinions and questions to yourself, because me and my friends are sick of dealing with it, and I imagine so is just about every one else."

Montparnasse laughs a little and says, "Did you call me stupid? Damn, Enjy, tell me what you really think."

"Oh, you wanna know what I really think?" Enjolras says, and Grantaire can see the exact moment when Montparnasse realizes that had been a bad thing to say. "I think you couldn't get water out of a boot with the instructions for getting that water written on the heel, yes I called you stupid. Every time you speak I want to personally send you a frozen turkey, so that someone can cook it for you, and you can eat it and then watch it go through your entire digestive tract, because you're head is conveniently located so far up your ass that you'll have the perfect view of your colon. Yes, I called you stupid."

Montparnasse stands there looking like he's scrambling for a decent response, but before he can come up with one, Grantaire and Jehan are grabbing Enjolras by the wrists and pulling him down the hallway, away from the scene. Admittedly, Grantaire's stifling a lot of laughter as he does.

One they're around the corner they let go of Enjolras and slow down a little. "Dude, what the hell was that?"

"That went way better than I could've ever hoped," Grantaire says, still laughing. He wheezes and repeats, "Send you a turkey. Perfect view of your colon. Enj, I love you."

"This isn't funny," Jehan says. Then, "Okay, maybe it's a little funny. But we could've just as well just walked away. Are you trying to get yourself more detention or what?"

Enjolras, who is clearly still fuming from they're previous conversation, huffs out an irritable sigh. He crosses his arms over his chest and says, "I'm not trying to get more detention, but if I had it would've totally been worth it."

Grantaire's still giggling when he says, "He's right, it would've."

Jehan face palms.

The warning bell rings. They have a brief discussion about how late they're going to be, then split up into groups to go find their own separate classes. Grantaire chuckles his whole way there. He still doesn't know why they hate Montparnasse so much; if they just got Enjolras to roast the guy every time he was annoying, Grantaire would personally look forward to Montparnasse being a dickhead, just because of how funny it would be. They could make a viral Youtube compilation of just Enjolras going off. 


	3. F is for Friends

The rest of the week, and even most of the week after, Grantaire's classes are at least marginally less terrible. He's pretty sure Javert does hate him for the incident on day one, but still Javert is generally prickly and strict to literally every student, so he can't really be a hundred percent on that one. The rest of his teachers are at least better than Javert though, most of them are also strict, a few are actually pretty chill. Grantaire finds that in most of his classes, as long as he's relatively quiet and at least looks like he's paying some attention, he can get away with doodling and sometimes texting depending on where he sits. He also shares five of his classes with friends, two of which have Enjolras in them, so he doesn't entirely dread having to show up.

Not to mention he eats just about every meal with the new group of friends he's somehow managed to latch himself to--usually not breakfast because he typically sleeps through it, he doesn't even know how many of them bother to show up to breakfast. He does know Enjolras often shows up to first period with a travel mug of coffee, and Feuilly leaves for breakfast most days, but that's the extent of his knowledge.

When they're not in classes, the pack of nerds that Grantaire's quickly grown fond of are either hanging out outside the library--close enough to the books, but not inside because the librarian is fond of kicking them out, he's learned--by the lake, or in one of their dorms. It takes Grantaire less time than he was expecting to adjust to this constant socializing from having two terrible friends back home, but on the days he doesn't feel like being that social he just chills in his room with his sketchbook. Otherwise, he's out shenaniganizing with the others.

All in all, Grantaire's pretty happy at Creekwood Academy. Who knew, right?

But he's not about to be that enthusiastic on the facetime call with his mother, when she calls Friday after classes let out to check up on him. He wasn't expecting either of his parents to call, in all honesty, but he thinks if he sounds  _too_ happy they might freak out and want to call him back. He also can't sound too miserable though, but for once that's not really a problem. He pauses for a minute, then tells his mom vaguely, "It's pretty good."

"I take it you're liking not having to deal with us," she says, passive aggressive as ever. He wasn't expecting any different.

It's very true, but Grantaire knows better than to tell her that. Well, in this moment he does at least. He bites back an irritable sigh and says, "No. I just feel like I'm learning more here. The teacher's are pretty strict, but I think it helps me focus."

Not even true. The teachers are strict, yes, but that's not related at all to his focus level. Actually, he doubts whether he's focussing much more here at all than he did at his other school. But his mother will be happy to hear he's focussing, and even happier to be able to tell his father that the teacher's are still strict. She hums in agreement and says, "I've always said you just needed more discipline. I'm glad you're doing better, let's hope your grades reflect it. Have you made any new friends?"

He can't exactly tell her 'Yeah, I've been spending all my time with a bunch of raging queers, and I have detention tomorrow because of it, but I don't even mind cuz I love them.' So instead he shrugs and says noncommittally, "Yeah, a few."

His mother's attitude is a little hard to read when she smiles and says, "That's wonderful, sweetie."

Hard to read because she actually looks like she believes it, which can't at all be true. But then, she's about as 'fake bitch' as they come usually, so for all he knows it could be a sham. After a second she glances over her shoulder at a sound somewhere off screen, then turns back and says, "Oh! Your father just got home, want me to hand the phone over?"

"Actually I was just about to go," Grantaire says. "Don't wanna get behind on homework."

"Oh, alright," his mother says, and Grantaire can picture his father's relief at not being handed the phone. Then she holds up a hand to wave and says, "Bye, sweetheart! Call if you need anything."

He murmurs a quick unemotional goodbye and hangs up, waiting for the screen to show the call has ended to roll his eyes, then setting his phone down on his desk in front of him. Then, with not much else to do, because of course he's not actually about to work on homework, he roots around in his backpack for a minute and pulls out his sketchbook. No inspiration's struck him at the moment, but he figures he can put some finishing touches on some of the sketches he's worked on over the past two weeks. He flips through the pages a few times, landing on the half done Enjolras drawing from day one.

Shrugging, Grantaire goes for his pens and starts to work finishing it from memory. It's not a terribly difficult task, he used to be one of those artists that hung around coffee shops drawing random people to get better at faces so he has a good memory of that kind of thing, and it's not like he hasn't spent an unreasonable amount of time staring at Enjolras in the past thirteen days.

While he's drawing his mind wanders off, and it's only fitting that he daydream about the very gorgeous blonde he's drawing. Really he can't be held responsible for wistfully imagining running his fingers through those soft curls, when he's currently trying to shade them in on the page. And who can blame him for picturing that wonderfully sharp jawline, when he's putting some finishing linework on it.

But it really only starts off as daydreaming, because now that he's thinking about Enjolras, his brain starts turning. Over the past two weeks Grantaire's already learned rather a lot about his newfound friend. (One such thing being that, despite just how often they bicker, Enjolras is a friend. Grantaire likes to ruffle his feathers, he just makes it too easy, but for awhile there he thought it might scare the guy away. But Courfeyrac explained the concern away saying, "If he didn't at least like you somewhat, he'd've bit your head off for those jokes already.") But what he keeps coming back to is the heaping amount of things about Enjolras that Grantaire doesn't know, which is a lot because they've only known each other two weeks, but more importantly, the stuff his long standing trusted friends don't seem to know either.

Anytime someone brings up summer vacation, Grantaire's noticed, Enjolras is uncharacteristically quiet. Everyone else has stories about what they did, but Enjolras usually changes the subject when asked what he got up to. Grantaire's certain there's something he's not telling them. He also knows it's not his place to pry. He involuntarily makes it his place to worry silently to himself, though.

He's just putting the finishing touches on the drawing when the door swings open with a burst of energy, and in storms Feuilly, Joly, and Enjolras. Grantaire just manages to slam his sketchbook closed fast enough that none of them catch a glimpse of the sketch, admittedly with a suspiciously loud  _thump_ , but it's masked by the  _thud_ Feuilly's backpack makes when he drops it unceremoniously onto the floor by the couch. Grantaire glances up at them, spinning the chair around and saying, "Hey, you guys. What's up?"

"It's an adverb," Enjolras says, the suppressed smirk on his face the only indication he's joking.

"No, it's that Pixar film about the old man flying his house to South America with a bunch of balloons," Feuilly says.

"Smartasses," Grantaire says with an eye roll.

At the same time, Enjolras turns to Feuilly with that little confused head tilt and says, "That sounds highly impractical. Is that really a film?"

"Yes, you watched it with me last spring break," Feuilly says tiredly, but there's an amused look on his face. He turns dramatically to Enjolras and then says, "Which is something you'd remember, if you weren't  _high off your mind._ "

Grantaire laughs. "Enj, you didn't strike me as the party type."

"It wasn't my fault, Jehan said they were regular brownies," Enjolras says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"You didn't notice they tasted different, when you grabbed from the wrong plate?" Feuilly asks, with the tone of someone who is both trying not to laugh, and who's had this conversation before several times.

"Of course I did! But I didn't want to hurt Jehan's feelings, he spent a lot of time baking them," Enjolras says, matter of factly. Grantaire almost makes a crack about Enjolras usually not being so considerate in that right, but he knows when Enjolras does come across as cold it's typically unintentional so he keeps his mouth shut, for once in his life. Enjolras sits on the arm of the couch, instead of sitting on the couch like a normal fucking human, and peers over at the desk behind Grantaire. He asks, "What'cha doing?"

"Just some doodling," Grantaire says, picking up the sketchbook. He opens it to the page with Mothman, figuring that's a better option to display at the moment, even if it's not the better drawing. He passes it to Enjolras and says with a shrug, "It's not that good, but whatever."

"What are you talking about? I love it," Feuilly says, leaning over Enjolras's shoulder to peak at the drawing. 

After looking at it for a couple of seconds, then frowning and looking at it a little closer as if that'll give him anymore information, Enjolras looks up at Grantaire and passes the sketchbook back, saying, "I'll be honest, I have no idea what it is."

"It's Mothman," Joly, Feuilly, and Grantaire all say at the same time. Grantaire adds enthusiastically, because Enjolras still looks confused, "Both a moth and a man! Mothman!"

"Is that...A comic book thing?"

"No."

"Combeferre explained Mothman to you, like, last semester. You have no excuse to not remember, you weren't high that time," Feuilly says, chuckling.

Enjolras smacks him in the shoulder, which only seems to make him chuckle even harder. So Enjolras rolls his eyes and turns to look back at Grantaire and says with a smile, "I have no idea who the Mothman is, but he looks very nice. I like how you did the shading, it's a nice aesthetic."

Grantaire's probably a little more happy with that mild compliment than he should be, to be honest. Just that it sounds thoughtful and genuine, rather than just out of politeness. He turns to put the sketchbook back in his bag before the others can get too curious about the rest of the contents. "Thanks," he says, grinning. "I've been working on methods that aren't cross hatching."

Despite not appearing to know much about, or have very much interest in, art and least of all different shading techniques, Enjolras leans forward with a curious look on his face. He asks, "So what method did you use for Mothman? And how is it better than cross hatching?"

And Grantaire knows Enjolras is probably just asking out of politeness, but he can't help but feel kind of proud that someone, especially the hyper intelligent (not to mention beautiful) Enjolras, is asking him about on of his favorite hobbies. So he smiles and says, "Mothman's shaded with stippling. It's not necessarily better than cross hatching, it just kind of depends what look you're going for. I just need to practice other methods, 'cause cross hatching was the first one I learned, so I kind of default to it."

"Not to interrupt," Feuilly says. "But you know where would be an even better place to have this conversation? The cafeteria."

Grantaire picks his phone back up and glances at the time. "Oh, shit, they're serving dinner now, huh?"

"Yeah, we came to pick you up," Joly says. "Well, we were picking Enj up, 'cause you know how he loses track of time. But we thought we'd get you too while we were here, we can all walk together."

"I did not lose track of time," Enjolras says, in a tone that's defensive enough to prove he had, in fact, lost track of time. "I was just finishing the--"

"The homework, we know," Joly interrupts, shaking his head.

"You've missed enough mealtimes with your nose in your work for us to know you'll forget," Feuilly says, laughing. He gives a pointed look at Grantaire and says, "And apparently someone else has the same habit."

Grantaire thinks about saying he hadn't lost track of the time because of the art, because the truth is he lost track of the time because he just gets lost in his own head when he's by himself. He decides it's not a correction worth making, though, at least not right now. They might ask him what he was thinking about that he got so lost in, and he doesn't want to answer that question just now, especially not in present company. Instead he just laughs and says, "I promise it's not usually a habit."

They all file out of the dorm room, heading down the stairs and then across the lawn into the cafeteria. Feuilly and Joly walk a little bit ahead, and as they walk Enjolras turns to Grantaire and says, "Hey, so I was thinking and, if you don't have anything else to do tomorrow night, you should come to the Amis meeting. We usually go to this nice cafe off campus, and you already know all the members anyway. We'd love to have you."

Grantaire tries not to read too much into that last sentence--he did say  _we_ after all, it's probably not personal--or the fact that it's Enjolras taking the time to invite him to the meeting. He shrugs and says, "Well I do have this pesky detention in the morning, but my night's free. I'll think about it."

They make it to the cafeteria then, grab their food, and find the rest of their gang taking up a table in the corner. It's fairly easy to find them, despite the cafeteria being somewhat crowded, because they're really one of the loudest tables there, and that's even before Enjolras gets there. Grantaire takes the empty seat next to Bahorel, Courfeyrac and Combeferre; and Enjolras, Joly, and Feuilly, unfortunately, end up on the other end of the table. When Grantaire sits down it takes the group a minute to even notice he's there, too wrapped up in their conversations. It's a big difference from back when Grantaire had approximately two friends, who only talked to him to avoid not talking to anyone. A good difference, to be sure, but a difference nonetheless.

He does catch the tail end of a comment he thinks he's not supposed to have heard, however, as Combeferre says, "...seems like he's not telling us something, maybe--Oh, he's here, we'll talk about it later."

They glance across the table, and Grantaire can't quite tell who they mean, but it must be either Joly, Feuilly, or Enjolras. Then before he even has time to think too much about it, Bahorel turns to Grantaire, greets him with a smile, and says, "R, how's it going? Looking forward to your first detention of the year?"

"You're one to talk, Bahorel," Courfeyrac says. "You might not have one yet, but it's coming."

"I've done nothing wrong ever in my life."

"Tell that to that freshman you accosted in the hallway," Combeferre mutters, at the same time Eponine finishes the meme saying, "I know this and I love you."

"He was just standing in the middle of the hall!" Bahorel says defensively, gesturing with his hands and coming just short of smacking Grantaire in the shoulder when he does it. "It's fine to talk to your friends between classes, hell I'm usually late 'cause I do it so much. But stand somewhere not in the way of people who have places to go. That's common sense."

Grantaire and Courfeyrac laugh, Combeferre rolls his eyes and smiles. It's not like Grantaire can't relate, he remembers days when he's wanted to yell at groups of people blocking the hallways just to stand in a circle and talk. He's never actually done it, though. Well okay, maybe once, but he was having a really shitty day and it was finals week, so it wasn't really his fault. Other than that one instance, he's never actually done it. 

Bahorel takes a bite of the spaghetti on his tray, then with the noodles still dangling out of the corners of his mouth he says, "At least I didn't kick a football into someone's head and then shout, 'GOAL!'"

"It was one time!" Feuilly says from across the table, somehow attuned to the conversation in time to hear that exact comment. He waves his index finger at Bahorel with a scowl and says, "One time! And it was before I saw that it his her!"

Grantaire can't help but laugh at the image in his head, or Feuilly's reaction to the subject being brought up. But immediately after he's made his point about how many times that incident happened--which was once--he just turns back to whatever he and Enjolras were talking about as if nothing happened. Then, as Grantaire about to open his mouth to ask who it was he konked in the head with a football, Feuilly turns back towards them and says, "And y'know what? It was in the  _ninth grade_."

Bahorel snickers like this was exactly the reaction he was expecting, and with him the rest of the table laughs. Grantaire leans forward to get a better view of Feuilly and asks, "Who did you try to kill ninth grade? Anyone I know?"

"I didn't try to kill--"

"Cosette," Courfeyrac says, grinning.

"Traitor!"

Grantaire's noticed in his two weeks with "the Amis" that they like to accuse one another of betrayal, (or sometimes mutiny, despite no one accusing it holding any title that would  _classify_ a betrayal as a mutiny,) and call each other traitors. Which was usually pretty funny, but also fairly ironic. He doubts he's ever met a group of friends more dedicated to one another than these assholes, and he already gets the vibe they'd quite literally go to the ends of the earth and back before betraying one another where it mattered. But still, in keeping amusing anecdotes confidential, they leave a lot to be desired.

"I did forgive you," Cosette says.

In fact as revenge for betraying the name of the victim whom Feuilly had beaned in the head with a football before shouting in victory freshman year, Feuilly decides to bring up the story about the time Cosette came up behind Courfeyrac to tickle him without him knowing she was there, and he got so startled he shrieked like a little child. Courfeyrac eats a forkful of noodles with a completely straight face and says, "Fight me, Feuilly."

Feuilly holds up his fists like he's getting ready to fight, but it doesn't work because 1) as hard as he's trying, he can't suppress his laughter and 2) Enjolras interrupts him to telling him he's making a fist wrong, and, "You'll break your thumb if you punch like that. And then most likely lose the fight."

"What? No, I'm doing it right," Feuilly says, frowning down at his fists.

"You couldn't be doing it more wrong," Bahorel says.

Enjolras rolls his eyes and reaches over, taking Feuilly's hands and moving his thumb out from under his fingers. Feuilly laughs as Enjolras maneuvers his hand into a proper shaped fist, and Grantaire knows he probably shouldn't feel jealous, but he definitely totally is. If he knew it was that easy to get Enjolras to hold his hands, he'd have pretended not to know how to make a fist like, the first day they met. A second later Enjolras takes his hands away and tells Feuilly, "Like that."

"Thanks," Feuilly says, chuckling softly and shooting a little glance at Enjolras. Then he turns back to Courfeyrac, better fists held up in front of him, and announces, "Fight me, Couf."

"You don't want to fuck with me," Courfeyrac says, not able to even finish the sentence without laughter. Bossuet and Marius join in with him when he continues, "I have the power of god  _and_ anime on my side."

Naturally the reference gets the appropriate amount of laughter from the group, including Enjolras which Grantaire will admit to being surprised by, he doesn't really have Enjolras pegged as the kind of guy to waste too much time watching vines. Still the laughter is cut off by a confused voice, it just comes from Combeferre this time, and he says, "Not to pull an Enjolras, but I have no idea what that's supposed to mean."

"It's a vine, you heathen," Grantaire says, flicking a pea at him.

"Why are we using my name as a word for not understanding a reference?" Enjolras asks with an exaggerated pout.

"Tbh, I really couldn't tell ya," Bahorel says.

"Courfeyrac you did this to me," Enjolras answers.

They lounge around in the cafeteria for a good hour after everyone's done eating, and they only leave once the cafeteria staff tells them to scram. Joly insists on wiping down their table himself before they go, even though they're being kicked out so the staff can clean. But once everyone makes it outside they're not quite ready to just go to bed yet, so the group ends up wandering aimlessly around campus, teasing each other some more and telling stories and just generally being obnoxious teenagers. 

Grantaire particularly enjoys it when Courfeyrac brings up what the group affectionately refers to as: The Library Incident. He doesn't even need to say much more than those three words for the group to burst into laughter, which means naturally Grantaire has to ask, "Hold up, what's the Library Incident?"

"I love having a new face in the group," Bossuet says. "We get excuses to tell all the best stories again."

"I wouldn't really call it one of the  _best_ ," Enjolras says, with the familiar pout on his face that tells Grantaire this story at least somewhat involves him.

"Well I would," Feuilly says, grinning. He turns to Grantaire and says, in his best storytelling voice, "The Library Incident. It was one fateful day back in freshman year, the day our groups merged. Well, it lead to the day our groups merged, anyway."

"Me, Feuilly, and Combeferre were already friends," Enjolras explains. "I knew Courfeyrac, of course, but we didn't get along."

"Didn't get along," Courfeyrac repeats, laughing. "I wanted to punch you so bad."

Enjolras laughs with him and says, "Likewise."

That was, admittedly, a surprise. Courfeyrac and Enjolras were good friends, now at least, and it was weird to picture them not being that way. Their dynamics were good for each other, in Enjolras's company Courfeyrac became far more bookish and studious--Grantaire didn't notice until he had a class with Courfeyrac and realized the boy was somewhat of a class clown, but would still spend hours discussing literature with Enjolras--and Courfeyrac managed to get Enjolras out of his books and into a conversation. Although now that Grantaire's considering it, he can certainly see how Enjolras might be kind of a terrible roommate, if you didn't know him.

"Okay, so me, Enj, and 'Ferre were looking for this book for homework," Feuilly says, getting back to the story. "And I don't know whose idea it was--"

"Mine," Bahorel interrupts, snickering.

"It was Bahorel's idea, to be like," Feuilly says, then in an exaggerated and comically awful impression of Bahorel he continues, "Hm, this library is super boring. What could make it more fun? I know, let's go prank that nerd using the library what it's supposed to be used for."

Bahorel is barely understandable through his laughter when he slings an arm around Grantaire's shoulder and says, "So I go to Couf, right? And I'm like, hey. Truth or dare? Because I already know what he'll say."

"Dare," Courfeyrac says with an imitation of a tired sigh. He chuckles and says, "So he dares me to sneak up behind Enjolras and scare him, because freshman year we were kind of unimaginative shenaniganizers. But I can't say no to a dare, and at the time I hated Enjolras anyway. So, like a god damn fool, I think 'This can't go that bad' and agree to scare him."

"It didn't go  _that_ bad," Jehan says. "In the long run, it brought us here."

"Jehan you're so Soft."

"Okay, so like, how did you scare him?" Grantaire asks.

"He just came up behind me, pushed me, and yelled in my ear," Enjolras says, rolling his eyes. "Like he said, unimaginative."

"Yeah, well it worked, so shut up," Bahorel says.

Enjolras smacks him lightly in the shoulder, then stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets. Grantaire watches him for a second, trying to decipher what he's thinking, but when he's unsuccessful he just turns to Joly and says, "Okay, so what makes this such a legendary incident? Sounds to me like just a lame prank."

"Well y'know that whole 'fight or flight' thing?"

Grantaire nods. Feuilly says, grinning, "You might've guessed this, but Enjolras is not a flight kind of guy."

"Oh no," Grantaire says.

"Oh yes," Enjolras says. He doesn't seem nearly as amused by the incident as the rest of the gang so clearly is, but the corner of his mouth is tilted ever so slightly up, in an almost smile.

"Enjolras elbowed him in the stomach," Bahorel says, like he thinks it's the funniest thing to ever happen. This time it's Courfeyrac who smacks him in the shoulder. Far from discouraged by this, Bahorel just laughs harder and says, "Courfeyrac fell over. I wish I got it on video, the look on his face was like--" He cuts himself off to pause and make a surprised face that Grantaire can't help but laugh at.

Once everyone's done laughing, and making different, progressively more comical imitations of Courfeyrac's face, Grantaire has to ask, "I don't see how  _that's_ the incident that made you guys start getting along."

"Well I thought it was so funny that Enj had to be our friend," Bahorel says.

Courfeyrac rolls his eyes and says, "Tbh, probably 'cause I felt bad for actually scaring him that much, and he felt bad for  _trying to kill me_ \--"

"You were barely injured."

"--So we had to start talking. And I mean, now that we don't hate each other, it makes for a pretty good story."

"Well, I'm glad you elbowed Courfeyrac in the ribs," Combeferre says matter of factly, clearly not realizing how that might sound. The group knows him well enough to know what he actually means, but that won't stop them giving him shit for it, so they all make similar comments about that being such a rude thing to say. Combeferre throws his hands up in the air and says, "Not like that, you guys! I just meant I'm glad we all started being friends!"

"Seconded, even if I didn't meet you guys until later," Jehan says, smiling.

When the conversation turns to more intellectual subject matter, Grantaire and Bahorel make excuses to leave. They walk back to the dorm building together, then go their separate ways in the hall. 

As Grantaire shuts the door behind him his eyes find the clock on his dresser, and he's a little shocked to find it blinking 10: 27 PM at him. It's not exactly late, but he hadn't thought they'd spent that much time hanging out after dinner. He swaps out his jeans for the faded Star Wars pajama pants, then drops lazily onto the couch, stretching his legs out across the cushions and turning on the t.v. He logs into his Netflix account and puts on an episode of The Great British Baking Show that he's seen a few dozen times, just for background noise, and takes out his phone.

Realistically, he shouldn't start anything that'll take too much time. He has to be up early tomorrow for that pesky detention. But he's really just using that as an excuse to open up Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp instead of working on the World Religion & Philosophy homework that's currently looming over him. It's admittedly a dangerous game to play; he has the potential of playing the app for either two minutes and then leaving, or playing it nonstop for at least an hour, and there's typically no in between.

He's finishing a request for Apollo the Eagle about half an hour later when Feuilly walks in, plopping down onto the couch next to Grantaire without looking and effectively crushing Grantaire's shins. Rather than get up for Grantaire to move his legs, he just settles more comfortably and says, "Great British Baking Show? Oh is this the one with--I love this episode."

Grantaire looks up at the screen for a second just to see which one's playing, then grins as he turns back to his phone and says, "Yeah. They're all good, though, tbh."

"Fair," Feuilly says, pulling his legs up to his chest and taking out his own phone. Grantaire's able to free one leg, setting his foot on the floor, but the other remains as Feuilly's cushion. It looks like Feuilly's texting when he says, "Hey, did Enj invite you to the meeting tomorrow?"

"What? Oh, yeah, he did," Grantaire says distractedly. Then, more to himself, he mutters, "Why is Apollo so needy? Little bitch."

"What?"

"Hm? Oh, I'm playing Animal Crossing," Grantaire says, holding out his phone screen for Feuilly to see. "I wasn't calling Enj Apollo or a little bitch, although now that we're on the subject..."

He trails off, and Feuilly laughs, shaking his head. "So you coming?"

Grantaire just shrugs and makes a sound that could be "I dunno" but doesn't quite make it. He'll probably end up going to the meeting, if only to have an excuse to see Enjolras again. Besides, it's not like he has any particularly better plans for tomorrow evening, besides possibly taking a nap to make up for having to be up so early in the morning. Still he says, "I mean, I support your causes, but all that activism jazz isn't exactly my specialty."

"Surprise surprise," Feuilly says.

"Look, I just don't really see how a couple of high schoolers in some club'll make any difference to the world," Grantaire says with a shrug. It's not that he's not aware of the issues in the modern world--well, he's aware of the more popular ones. He's sure there are plenty he doesn't know shit about, precisely because he can't bring himself to care all too much--it's just that he knows enough to know him joining their little nerd club won't make a difference. They admitted it themselves, they've been trying to get the rights to meet on campus for two years, and they've had little to no success. Their dedication doesn't mean anything to the stubborn old conservatives running the place, Grantaire's just realistic enough to see that. It's a waste of time.

Feuilly must sense at least some of what Grantaire's thinking, because he raises a disapproving eyebrow. He's silent for a second, then turns back to texting and says, "I guess I respect your opinion."

It's evidently not as easy nor as fun to push Feuilly's buttons as it is to push Enjolras's. Grantaire can just picture Enjolras's angry pout if Grantaire were to make a similar remark to him, and the ensuing lecture about how  _someone_ has to try and make a difference, and it might as well be them. Sometimes Grantaire even starts to think he believes him, actually.

After Feuilly's sent his text he looks back up and says, "Y'know we don't have to make a difference to the world, right?"

Grantaire looks up and frowns because 1) he thought that conversation was over already, and 2) that sentence didn't make any sentence with what he knew of the Amis beliefs. "Pardon?"

"I know Enjolras has all these big ideas about changing the world," Feuilly says with an affectionate eye roll. "But it's okay to think smaller, R. Jehan likes to talk about the butterfly effect, or whatever. Maybe we don't change the world with our little club, but we can change things for some of the students who come here after us, and they can change things for someone else. If everyone makes a little difference, eventually things start looking better. It's like Combeferre says, it takes a lot of pieces to solve a puzzle."

That makes Grantaire think. He's still skeptical, but it is kind of nice to consider the image, that a puzzle doesn't work without a number of pieces, and the pieces don't work without the puzzle. It actually kind of goes to prove the point, that most of Feuilly's argument was comprised of perspectives his friends have shared with him.

But Grantaire's a little shit and he can't just say he likes the sound of that, so instead he shrugs and says, "I hate puzzles."

Feuilly and Grantaire hangout on the couch watching The Great British Baking Show for at least another hour and a half, commenting about the challenges and arguing about the contestants. Then when Grantaire's phone starts to die he figures it's about time to get some sleep. They switch off the t.v. and the lights, and Grantaire scales the ladder into bed. His head hits the pillow with a lot to think about but instead of considering any of it he dozes off.

* * *

Grantaire's woken from his dream of competing in a baking contest against a variety of overly friendly animals a little too soon--he doesn't even get to find out who won--as the sound of his alarm starts blaring. It's not the alarm that wakes him, however, so much as the pillow that smacks him in the side of the head. He grumbles and rolls over, taking the weaponized pillow and hugging it to his chest. A couple of seconds later he finally cracks his eyes open when he hears Feuilly's voice grumbling, "Grantaire turn off that alarm right now or so help me god, I will set fire to your hair."

"It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make," Grantaire says, making zero effort to get up.

"Fine, your sketchbook then."

"You're a monster."

"Look, you might've got yourself detention, but I get to sleep on my Saturday," Feuilly says, his voice slightly muffled. Grantaire can picture his face buried in the pillow that he hasn't (yet) thrown at him. "Turn that thing off."

With a tired huff, Grantaire eventually throws his blankets off and stumbles down the ladder, smacking the off button on his alarm with some unnecessary force. He snatches Feuilly's pillow from the top bunk and throws it back at Feuilly, who doesn't even react. Grantaire rolls his eyes and goes to get dressed quickly, not putting too much thought into what he wears, then grabs his backpack off the couch and his phone off the charger, and stumbles out the door with a mumbled goodbye to his roommate.

Grantaire stops by the cafeteria on his way to detention, grabbing one of the orange juice cartons for himself, and two banana muffins--and then while he's there, because he has no impulse control, he sticks a couple apples and some of the mini cereal boxes into his backpack. He opens the orange juice carton and drinks it while he walks, tossing it in the trashcan by the door when he ducks into the Health classroom where detention is apparently held.

Naturally not that many students have landed themselves in a detention just yet, so there are only about three kids in the room when Grantaire shows up. He spots Montparnasse in the back left corner of the room and decides to find a seat on the opposite side of the room, noticing that Enjolras must've had the same train of thought when he spots him sitting in the front row desk in the right corner. He looks up when the door opens and offers Grantaire a sleepy grin and a half-assed wave, then gestures to the empty desk next to him.

Grantaire accepts the offer readily. Tired and in detention or not, he's not about to miss opportunity to sit with Enjolras. He tosses his backpack onto the ground beside him, and reaches into the pocket of his hoodie for the napkin wrapped muffins, passing one to Enjolras and saying, "Got you a gift from the cafeteria."

Enjolras raises his eyebrow and accepts the muffin, peeling the napkin away to see the contents. Then he smiles again, only marginally less sleepy than the one a second ago, and says, "Thank you."

"I dunno why, but I thought this would be more crowded," Grantaire says, gesturing to the empty detention room.

"I mean it is early, but usually it doesn't get that crowded at all," Enjolras says with a shrug. "Creekwood's strict, yeah, but they don't like to give to many detentions, or really any reprimands that would go on a record. They think it makes them look bad."

"They're very concerned with their image, this school," Grantaire remarks, leaning back in his seat.

It makes sense, he supposes. It's a school funded primarily through tuitions and donations and all that nonsense from the rich elite, usually parents with an interest in sending their kid there. And since they sometimes ignore poor grades in favor of a nice donation--see: Grantaire being admitted this semester--they rely pretty heavily on having at least a good image. He imagines it's also why they care so much if the students that  _are_ enrolled start to have their grades drop.

Enjolras and Grantaire stop talking when the door swings open again, turning to see Mr. Mabeuf walking in. He's a Health and English teacher, and though Grantaire doesn't have any classes with the man, he generally doesn't expect detention to be too bad if they have this guy supervising it. He's widely known as being a super chill teacher, even if it is because he's 'too old to give a shit' as Bossuet likes to put it. But he's apparently a pretty good teacher, Marius is a fan of his class at least.

"Good morning, delinquents," Mabeuf greets them with a good natured chuckle, and everyone looks up from their phones or conversations. He walks over and drops into cluttered mahogany desk at the front of the room, picking up the roster from the front of the room. "Alright, is Grantaire here?"

"Physically, yes. Now mentally..." Grantaire says. Mabeuf laughs and goes to mark down that Grantaire's present, but Grantaire cares infinitely more about the subtle smile that he gets from Enjolras.

"Hm, Enjolras and Montparnasse," Mabeuf says, peering over the roster with a single raised eyebrow. With the tweed suit and the spectacles slipping off of his nose, he looks more like a caricature of an elderly English teacher than an actual one. He scans the room, possibly for longer than necessary considering there are only four kids in the room, and finds Montparnasse then Enjolras and says, "Starting off early this year, aren't we, boys? You two competing for the school record?"

"Do we get a trophy if we beat it, sir?"

Grantaire hates to admit it, but if it weren't Montparnasse cracking that joke, he might've laughed. He almost does as is, but he stops himself on principle. Mabeuf, on the other hand, can get away with chuckling and he does. "Not any I'm aware of," Mabeuf says. He glances down at the roster once more and then looks up and asks, "Eponine?"

The kid sitting at the desk in the middle of the room with her head buried in her arms looks up tiredly, not bothering to sit up just glancing over her arms, and sure enough it is Eponine. She yawns and says, "Yeah?"

Mabeuf ticks her name off on the roster, then puts it away in a folder. He clears his throat and says, "Alright, technically you're not supposed to do anything for the next hour, they just want you to sit and think about what you did. But I have it on high authority, my own experience, that none of you will do that anyway. So just keep it to a dull roar and stay off of your phones, and we'll pretend you feel bad about breaking the rules. Sound good?"

He grins, then reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a book that looks like the kind of thing Enjolras would read; that is to say, lots of pages and probably incredibly boring. Once he starts reading, Montparnasse immediately takes out his phone and doesn't even bother to hide it as he sets to playing some app or whatever. Enjolras props his feet up on Grantaire's chair and turns back to whatever homework he'd been doing when Grantaire first showed up, so Grantaire reaches for his bag and takes out his sketchbook, opening it up to a fresh page.

While Enjolras writes he asks, "So are you taking an art elective this semester?"

It takes Grantaire a second to realize the question is even directed at him, because Enjolras doesn't even look up from what he's scribbling to ask it. Grantaire taps his pen on the so far empty page in front of him and nods. "Yeah, actually. Same one as Marius."

"Oh," Enjolras says, brows furrowing slightly. "I hadn't realized Marius was interested in art."

"What, you never asked him about it?"

Grantaire's somewhat surprised, actually. Sure Enjolras doesn't seem like he cares that much about art himself, but he does care a lot about his friends. He's asked Grantaire questions about art before just because he knew Grantaire cared about it, and he's definitely know Marius far longer than he's known Grantaire. Something at the back of Grantaire's head suggests maybe Enjolras has some reason for wanting to ask more about Grantaire's interests, but he brushes that aside, figuring it just must not have come up before. Marius does have a lot of hobbies, after all, it's no surprise some might go unnoticed.

Enjolras shrugs and says, "Never came up, I guess." Then he mumbles, so quietly Grantaire barely hears it, "What's that word again? Oh, right."

Grantaire runs a hand through his hair and turns to look back at his sketchbook, where his mind is as blank of ideas as the page in front of him. He taps his pen against the page a couple of times trying to think of something, then gives up and looks over at Enjolras, leaning forward to see the notebook in front of him. "What'cha working on? The Philosophy paper?"

"You can't copy, if that's why you're asking," Enjolras says.

"Wow, you think so highly of me," Grantaire says, heavy on the sarcasm. "On the subject, though, can I copy just a little?"

Enjolras looks up at him with a glare, but one of his less serious ones, with a hint of amusement twinkling in his eyes. He shakes his head and looks back down at the page in front of him, picking up writing again but saying, "I think you're being sarcastic, but I actually do think rather highly of you. Just so you know."

"And here I thought you were smart."

"I am smart."

"Uh huh, sure."

Enjolras tears off the corner of a page from his notebook, rolls it into a little ball, and flicks it at Grantaire. It bounces lightly off of Grantaire's nose, and Enjolras turns innocently back to working as if he hadn't done anything. Little shit.

Lacking a paper to throw back at him--he's sure as hell not ripping a page in his sketchbook--Grantaire takes off the cap of his pen and throws it at Enjolras, where it lands in his (beautiful amazing godlike) hair and sticks in the curls. Grantaire laughs, and Enjolras looks down and takes the cap out of his hair and holds it up for Grantaire to see. He raises his eyebrows with a look of immense disappointment and says, "Really, R? Throwing things? How immature are you?"

"Dude, you threw it firs--"

Grantaire cuts himself off as Enjolras throws the pen cap back, where it falls through the neck of his sweatshirt. Grantaire reaches a hand down his sweatshirt to try and root the pen cap out, then he hears a clatter and realizes it's fallen onto the floor. He tries to keep the mock annoyed look on his face, but it's really hard when Enjolras is giggling like that with such a proud grin on his face, and Grantaire can't entirely suppress his smile when he reaches down to pick up the pen cap off the floor. Putting the cap back on the pen, Grantaire looks over at Enjolras and says, "You're just completely unre _pen_ tant, aren't you?"

The smile on Enjolras's face drops into an irritated scowl that Grantaire can just barely tell is fake, and he says, "Was that a pun? Was that a deliberate pun? 'Taire, tell me that wasn't a deliberate pun."

Grantaire falters for a second; that's a new nickname. He doesn't think Enjolras has even called him R before, which is what most of the Amis have dubbed him. For some reason Enjolras addressing him with a nickname throws him off. He blinks a couple of times, then finally realizes he's supposed to answer and he puts on a smug smile to say, "It was completely a deliberate pun. You can't stop me, I am pun-stoppable."

"Uuuggghhh, Grantaire whhyyyyyyy," Enjolras says, as overdramatic as he claims he's not, smacking his forehead onto his desk. It sounds like he does it a little harder than he intends to, because Grantaire hears a  _thunk_ followed by a groan and, "Ouch."

Grantaire must laugh a little too hard at that one. He knows he does, firstly because he almost falls out of his desk, and secondly because Mabeuf looks up from his book and clears his throat, saying, "I seem to recall making a comment about dull roars."

"Sorry," Grantaire says, quieting down a little.

"Yeah, keep your flirting down, the rest of us don't want to hear it," Montparnasse half-whispers from across the room.

It's a remark that Mabeuf must not hear, because his nose is already back in his book. Grantaire sobers up a little, shooting an irked look at Montparnasse over his shoulder, but it's kind of distracted. He knows Montparnasse is just a dickhead, so he probably shouldn't read into the comment, but he does anyway because he just loves doing what he knows he shouldn't. They weren't flirting. Were they? He can't risk looking over at Enjolras to gauge his reaction at the comment, he might give some of his own thoughts away, and he doesn't want to jeopordize his friendship with Enjolras by letting him find out he kind of  _wants_ to be flirting.

Eponine, who up until now he'd thought was asleep on her desk (he's sure he heard a snore earlier) sits up just so she can turn around and give Montparnasse the bird and say, "Stow it, Monty."

Montparnasse puts his hands up in front of him, palms out in a gesture of mock defense, and leans back in his seat, propping his feet up on the desk in front of him. He still has that ridiculous smirk on his face, but he picks his phone back up and goes back to texting. Eponine shoots a quick little smile over at Grantaire, then puts her head back onto her desk to go back to sleep.

"Don't mind him, Grantaire," Enjolras says, and Grantaire's thinks he might be reading just a little into it that he sounds a little hesitant. "I think the sound of friendship hurts his soul."

Grantaire zeroes in slightly on the word 'friendship' there, and takes it as a subtle hint from Enjolras that he wasn't trying to flirt. He's never really read Enjolras as a subtle hints type of guy, but he figures it must make sense. And while Grantaire's not completely overjoyed about the idea that Enjolras thinks Grantaire was trying to flirt--he might've been, but that's not the point--he does appreciate Enjolras not rubbing his nose in the rejection. So he brushes it aside to overthink later and says, "Well for that to be true he'd have to have a soul."

Enjolras hums in agreement. "You make a fair point."

After that Enjolras goes back to doing his homework a little more quietly, and Grantaire takes the cap back off his pen and returns to trying to think of something to sketch. When he can't think of anything creative he just settles for working on drawing hands more accurately, and gets to sketching. The rest of detention is a lot more subdued, they talk back and forth a little more but for the most part they've withdrawn into their own respective work. Grantaire wonders if he's the only one reading too much into Montparnasse's crack about them flirting. 

Mr. Mabeuf decides to let detention out around ten minutes early. Grantaire can't imagine why except that he's bored with being responsible for them, because while they stick there things back into their bags and file out the door, Mabeuf doesn't move from or look up from his book at all. Not that Grantaire's complaining, that's ten minutes of his Saturday that he gets back.

That's a pessimistic thought, but really detention hadn't been that awful. Sure things were a little awkward after Montparnasse made that snippy comment, and he made a few more after that but for the most part they just ignored him. That aside, detention had really just given Grantaire an excuse to spend almost an hour of one on one time with his major nerd crush, so he figures he doesn't have any real complaints about it. Out loud, however, that won't stop him from complaining, because he's a pessimistic son of a bitch and he won't let that image be compromised.

So as they walk out of the building Grantaire says, "What am I s'pposed to do now? It's like, nine a.m. Enj, what do people do when they wake up before noon?"

"I usually spend my weekends reading when I wake up before the others," Enjolras says, in a tone that makes it clear it is a hundred percent true, but also that he's mostly saying it because the very idea would appal Grantaire.

"Eyuck," Grantaire says, sticking his tongue out in mock disgust. He shakes his head, aware of his messy hair bouncing everywhere with the action, and says, "You just spent like an hour working on homework. Don't you ever do anything fun?"

Enjolras lets out a strangled little offended sound, looking over at Grantaire and smacking his chest lightly. "First off, I spent like an hour talking to you while I did the homework. And also, it was detention, so I don't really see how it's fair to set that as your standard. Second, reading  _is_ fun. And third: I totally do fun things! I'm very fun, you're exaggerating."

While Grantaire could accept this, because while he's sure Enjolras is a workaholic he knows there's also a more playful side to the guy than one might initially think upon meeting him. But it's much more fun to push his buttons, so Grantaire folds his arms across his chest and says skeptically, "Oh yeah? Name one thing you've done since the semester started that's actually fun."

"Alright, well reading is actually fun, but I can see you won't accept that because you have a very narrow definition of what fun is. Still, I have no interest in playing your little game, I see what you're doing."

"You're only saying that 'cause you know you haven't done anything fun," Grantaire says, unphased by Enjolras's claim to know Grantaire's intention. Honestly Enjolras is ready to argue twenty-four seven, and Grantaire's noticed that even when he's aware someone is attempting to get him to argue with them just because they think it's funny, he still can't help himself. This applies to friends joking around with him--i.e; Grantaire--as well as assholes being obnoxious--i.e; Montparnasse. So he's fairly certain Enjolras will take the bait without much further prodding.

As if to prove Grantaire's point, Enjolras points an index finger ar Grantaire and says, "I have fun. I went to that stupid welcome back party at the lake the day before classes, that fits your narrow definition of fun."

Grantaire hums like he's considering it, then shrugs. "Doesn't count. You literally just said it was stupid, and you spent most of it talking about nerd stuff with 'Ferre. Besides, we literally had to drag you there. If that's the only fun you've done, you're living a sad life, my man."

"I hate you," Enjolras grumbles. Then he says, "I beaned Marius in the nose with a tater tot on Monday."

"That was an accident," Grantaire says, suppressing his laughter at the memory.

"But it was funny though."

"I didn't say you weren't funny, I said you weren't fun."

"Yelling at Montparnasse was fun."

"Which time?" Grantaire says, raising an eyebrow. Before Enjolras can actually answer he shakes his head and says, "Getting in fights doesn't count, Skeletor."

"I've seen the episode of He-Man you're referencing, do I get points for that?"

"No, it wasn't in the last two weeks."

Finally Enjolras huffs, tossing his arms up in the air in a show of frustration. Then he runs a hand through his perfect, amazing, messy hair and looks over at Grantaire to say, "Fine. If you know so much about fun, why don't you tell me something fun then?"

Did Grantaire just successfully trick Enjolras into spending more time with him outside of class? Maybe. He's rolling with it until it backfires, though. He taps an index finger to his lips as if deeply pondering an answer. Which he kind of is, because now that it's up to him he's literally forgotten everything fun that exists in this world. Damn, he really didn't think this through. He doesn't really know where he's going with his answer when he answers, "This place is called Creekwood Academy right?" Enjolras nods his That Should be Obvious nod. "So where's the creek at?"

Enjolras raises an eyebrow, like he's deciding whether to trust Grantaire or not. After a second he says, a hint of a question in his tone, "It runs through the forest area on the North side of campus."

Grantaire nods decisively, then starts in the direction Enjolras had indicated. He jerks his head in a gesture for Enjolras to follow him and says, "Okay let's go."

He pauses when Enjolras doesn't follow, and turns to see him standing there with that same skeptical look on his face. Actually this time it looks more confused than skeptical, which Grantaire imagines is a step up. "Why?"

"I'm gonna show you fun."

And for some reason that fucking works, and while Enjolras still doesn't look like he completely believes Grantaire, he does follow him. Or rather he follows him a couple of steps, and then it becomes Grantaire following him, because Enjolras is the one who actually already knows where the creek is. As they walk though he explains that he only really knows vaguely where the creek is, because he's never actually been to it himself, he just remembers some of the directions from when Bossuet had told the story about getting lost on his way to a class last year, and winding up at the creek.

As such, it takes them a little longer than Grantaire was expecting to find the creek. They do find it eventually, though, after Grantaire's not sure how long of stumbling around between the trees, and Enjolras saying he doesn't see how getting themselves lost in the woods is that much fun.

"And you call me the cynic," Grantaire says.

"That's because you are one," Enjolras says, holding out a hand to catch Grantaire as he stumbles over a log. Grantaire opens his mouth to thank him, but Enjolras hushes him, looking up to glance around them and saying, "Shut up. I think I hear the creek."

They both pause, turning in circles to look around at the shockingly dense trees surrounding them like a couple of morons, and smacking each other's arms like a couple of morons when they hear something. Grantaire recognizes the sound of moving water, and waves a hand, tugging at Enjolras's elbow as they half-sprint towards the noise.

The creek is slightly smaller than Grantaire was picturing in his mind, but in his defense he's never actually seen a creek in real life before. Still, it looks deep enough to possibly go swimming in, and actually with the sun reflecting off the water and the green of the trees in the background. There's a cliche looking bridge a little ways down. Grantaire suddenly finds himself regretting that he didn't bring his paints with him to detention this morning, because it would be so fun to paint. A nice Bob Ross looking scene like this one? He's gotta come back with a canvas some time.

Enjolras looks out at the creek for a few seconds then sticks his hands into his pockets and turns to Grantaire, a half-amused look on his face, and says, "We found it. What's the next step in your plan, exactly?"

Grantaire glances over at the creek then back over at Enjolras, dropping his backpack on the ground at his feet. Enjolras raises an eyebrow, and Grantaire gives him a grin that might look somewhat maniacal.

"This," he says, and charges forward with a Tarzan yell before leaping into the creek.

He surfaces a few seconds later, his now soaking wet hair hanging in front of his eyes. When he brushes it away his gaze finds Enjolras, standing in the exact same place but soaking wet from the splash, with an unimpressed look on his face that looks like it's taking an awful lot of effort to maintain. It fades into a small laugh when Grantaire goes to smile at him, but has to spit out a bunch of creek water first.

Shaking his head, Enjolras just says, "That can't be sanitary."

"Who are you, Joly?" Grantaire asks.

"No, Joly wouldn't have even let you drag him this far out here," Enjolras says, which is a completely fair point, from what Grantaire knows of Joly.

Enjolras goes to sit down in the grass by the creek, tugging his backpack off of his shoulders and unzipping the front pouch. Grantaire knows what he's doing before he even takes the book out of the bag.

"You are  _not_ taking out a book," Grantaire says, and Enjolras freezes halfway through taking it out. "We're teaching you real fun, remember?"

"My fun is real fun," Enjolras says with an eye roll.

"Liar."

"I'm already at the creek, I don't know what more you want from me."

"The water's fine."

"If I jump in the creek will you let me read in peace?"

That was easier than Grantaire had been expecting. He shrugs and says, "Yeah, sure."

Enjolras shakes his head, zipping his backpack back up and setting it to the side. With a huff, he gets to his feet and starts walking. For a second Grantaire thinks he might be leaving, except that he leaves his bag on the floor, and also campus is in the other direction. It's only after Enjolras turns to step onto the bridge that Grantaire makes the connection, and also remembers just how much of an All or Nothing personality this boy has. Not that Grantaire's complaining, because this'll probably be even better than him just diving in from the creekbed.

He stops at the center of the bridge and goes to step up onto the rail, but pauses before he follows through. First Grantaire thinks he's going to chicken out. Then he thinks Enjolras is trying to give him a heart attack, because he steps back and pulls his t-shirt off over his head. That stupid dumb nerd looks like some kind of Greek painting, with the sun reflecting off his golden hair, standing there all hot and shirtless. An underhanded move, truly.

He slips his shoes and socks off as well, then catches Grantaire staring and says, "What? I don't want to get my shirt wet."

Grantaire's head doesn't quite wrap around that logic, because he seems perfectly fine swimming with his blue jeans, but whatever. He doesn't have much time to think about it, or more importantly much time to admire the view, because a second later Enjolras climbs up onto the bridge railing, and the dork actually jumps into the creek. Canon ball style.

When he doesn't immediately swim back up Grantaire starts to worry, and finds himself swimming over to wear Enjolras had hit the water. He's halfway there when he hears something behind him, and the second he turns around to check it out, he's hit in the face with a splash of water. He hears Enjolras laughing.

Grantaire splutters, bringing his hands up to wipe the water from his face. It's mostly ineffective, because his hands are also soaking wet, but no one ever said Grantaire was smart. Or at least, no one correct ever said it. When he blinks enough water out of his face to actually see again, he's met with the angelic vision of Enjolras grinning about a foot away from him. He sounds incredibly smug when he asks, "Does that fit your definition of fun, then, Grantaire?"

"No, but this does," Grantaire says, smacking his hand into the creek to send a surge of water at Enjolras in retaliation.

Enjolras laughs and moves out of the way to avoid being hit, but he's at least a little too slow. A second later and the two of them are engaged in an all out splash war; a conflict that Grantaire thought he'd have better chances at, purely because it's not a strategic endeavor and Grantaire apparently has more experience, but somehow Enjolras is kicking his ass. Possibly because the boy is motivated entirely by spite, and it makes him incredibly competitive. Either way, they're both laughing and firing joking insults back and forth along with the water, then complaining because every time they talk or laugh they get gross creek water in their mouths.

There's no clear winner when the war finally comes to an end. Both of them are somehow even more soaking wet than they initially were, but Grantaire's cheeks hurt from laughter, so he figures his nonexistent plan was mostly successful.

After that Enjolras climbs out of the creek, retrieving his shirt from the bridge (unfortunately) and slipping it back on. Then he plops back down into the grass by the creek, opens up his backpack, and takes out the book. Grantaire shrugs, figuring he can't win them all, and just goes to float on his back for awhile, eyes shut and basking peacefully in the sun.

He only stays that way for a couple of minutes before it gets boring, and he climbs out of the creek as well, laying down on the ground next to Enjolras. He tosses an arm over his eyes to block out the sun.

"You're going to get all covered in mud," Enjolras says, not looking up from the pages.

"If I'm muddy than so be it."

"That's the spirit."

They lapse into a comfortable silence then, Enjolras reading his nerd book and Grantaire appreciating the sun. It's actually such a comfortable place to sleep that Grantaire kind of dozes off for a little while.

When he wakes up Enjolras is still sitting there reading, so he's not really sure how long they've been there. He yawns and sits up, plucking a piece of grass absentmindedly and looking up at the sky. It's still really sunny. Grantaire's clothes are slightly drier than they were when he dozed off, but they're also muddy, like Enjolras had warned. "Hey, you getting hungry yet?"

Enjolras jumps slightly, like the sudden disturbance in the quiet surprised him. Then he turns to Grantaire and says, "Oh, you're awake. What time is it?"

"Uh," Grantaire says, reaching for his backpack a little ways off and snatching his phone from the side pocket. He checks the screen real quick and says, "Elevenish. It'll probably be around lunchtime by the time we walk back."

"Don't tell me you plan on walking into the cafeteria wearing mud for a fashion statement?"

"I dunno, how well do I pull it off?" Grantaire answers, striking an over exaggerated model pose.

Enjolras rolls his eyes, but Grantaire catches the slight hint of a smile when he folds the book closed and goes to put it back in his backpack. Then he gets up, slinging the backpack over his shoulder, and offers Grantaire a hand up. "I don't think dirt is very flattering on anyone. It's on my jeans, too, though. Let's head back to the dorms and change, then we can meet the others for lunch."

"Booo, fine."

"Hm, maybe you should've thought about getting hungry before charging into the woods on a whim," Enjolras says.

"It's called spontaneity, the whole point is you don't think abo--" Grantaire cuts himself off, diving for his backpack and pulling out a couple of the mini boxes of cereal he'd snagged from the cafeteria earlier in the morning. He hands one to Enjolras and says, "How's that for thinking about being hungry? I brought cafeteria cereal."

Enjolras accepts the box of Lucky Charms being handed to him, glancing down at it with some confusion, and deadpans, "You're full of surprises."


End file.
